List of Famous people born in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany

Wendelin Werner is a German-born French mathematician working on random processes such as self-avoiding random walks, Brownian motion, Schramm–Loewner evolution, and related theories in probability theory and mathematical physics. In 2006, at the 25th International Congress of Mathematicians in Madrid, Spain he received the Fields Medal "for his contributions to the development of stochastic Loewner evolution, the geometry of two-dimensional Brownian motion, and conformal field theory". He is professor at ETH Zürich.

Sebastian Hille is a German football coach and former player. In 2015, he became assistant manager of the Arminia Bielefeld U19.

Ümit Kocasakal is a Turkish lawyer and academic who served as the president of the Istanbul Bar Association between 7 November 2010 and 23 October 2016. He is a Professor, Doctor of law and has been a political commentator critical of the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) and their alleged encroachments on judicial independence in Turkey.

Udo Pastörs is a German politician and convicted Holocaust denier. He is the former leader of the far-right NPD, and served as a representative in the Landtag of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

Beate Heister is a German billionaire heiress. She is one of the two children of Karl Albrecht, who founded the discount supermarket chain Aldi with his brother Theo.

Linda Stahl is a retired German track and field athlete who competed in the javelin throw.

Monica Theodorescu is a German retired equestrian and dressage rider.

Anthony Baffoe is the Deputy General Secretary of the Confederation of African Football a business manager and former Ghana international footballer. As the son of a Ghanaian diplomat, Baffoe grew up near to the former West German capital of Bonn and made a name for himself in the 1980s in the Bundesliga, becoming a real crowd favourite for 1. FC Köln and Fortuna Düsseldorf.

Otto Happel is a German billionaire businessman, the former owner and CEO of GEA Group.

Clemens Fuest is a German economist who has been President of the Ifo Institute for Economic Research and director of the Center for Economic Studies at the University of Munich (LMU) since 2016.