They bear great responsibility, yet they are hardly noticed outside the company: our Finance Team. Monika Ferrari has been an accountant for around 20 years and knows Habegger like the back of her hand. We took the opportunity to talk to her before she takes her well-deserved retirement in autumn.
If you were to ask the Habegger employees how they’d describe Monika, the following attributes would probably come up: unassuming, friendly, always willing to listen. And they would probably hit the mark with that. The 63-year-old from Zurich likes to stay in the background, puts work first, and stays calm even when numbers are repeatedly missing from forms. An accountant straight out of a picture book. But it almost didn’t happen.
Family connections
As a teenager, Monika was more interested in languages. “I didn’t trust myself to work with numbers back then,” she reveals. As a result, she completed a commercial apprenticeship with a focus on linguistics and then worked in a Swiss bank. After her maternity leave, Monika decided to return to work in 2003. At a family party, her brother Peter convinced her to join his company – an event technology company he had founded 20 years earlier: today’s Habegger AG.
That was just fascinating!
From the typewriter to the PC
“I didn’t really know the event business,” Monika laughs, when asked about her first day at work. It was all the more exciting when she was allowed to look behind the scenes of a production for the first time. Monika: “That was just fascinating!” The technological changes that Monika has experienced over the past two decades are also impressive. But she says: “The job hasn’t changed much, the piles of paper have simply become smaller now that everything is digitalised.”
This year Monika (2nd from left) celebrated her 20th anniversary with Habegger.
20 years of change
She sees digitalisation as an advantage. You now know exactly who has an invoice, she says, and can follow it up if necessary. Generally speaking, she would like colleagues to keep a slightly closer eye on things and give suppliers the correct project details in advance. That way, she could save herself some reminder e-mails. But Monika doesn’t let that get her down and remains first and foremost the service provider: “I like my work and everything that comes with it.”
Deep friendships
She will be taking her well-earned retirement at the end of October. “I will miss my team the most,” she says, with mixed feelings, as they were a very tight-knit group, and deep friendships developed over the years. But she will definitely not be bored after her time at Habegger: “I am needed as a granny, I do the bookkeeping for an association, and I have a large circle of friends.” And perhaps Monika will also drop by Regensdorf from time to time.
Franco Fiorillo, Head of Finance
Jenny Betschart, Senior Accountant
