List of Famous people born on January 1st

Wadah Khanfar is the President of Al Sharq Forum, an independent network dedicated to developing long-term strategies for political development, social justice and economic prosperity of the people of the Middle East. He previously served as the Director General of Al Jazeera Media Network. He has been ranked by Foreign Policy Magazine in 2011 as the first in The FP Top 100 Global Thinkers, and in Fast Company as the first in the 100 Most Creative People in Business (2011) and as one of the most 'Powerful People in the World' by Forbes magazine (2009)., in 2008 World Economic Forum named Khanfar as one of the 'Young Global Leaders'. During his tenure Al Jazeera went from a single channel to a media network with multiple properties including the Al Jazeera Arabic channel, Al Jazeera English, Al Jazeera Documentary, Al Jazeera Sport, Al Jazeera's news websites, the Al Jazeera Media Training and Development Center, the Al Jazeera Center for Studies, Al Jazeera Mubasher (Live), and Al Jazeera Mobile. On 20 September 2011, he stepped down as the head of Al Jazeera Network.

Josette Sheeran is an American non-profit executive and diplomat who served in the United States Department of State. Sheeran serves as the seventh President and CEO of Asia Society. Sheeran was also the United Nations Special Envoy for Haiti.

Dan Lemmon is a New Zealand visual effects supervisor. In 2012, he was nominated for an Academy Award for the movie Rise of the Planet of the Apes. This was in the category of Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, his nomination was shared with Daniel Barrett, Joe Letteri and R. Christopher White.

Kong Xuanyou, or Gong Hyeon-U in Korean, is a Chinese diplomat and the current Ambassador to Japan. He is responsible of Asian affairs, treaty and law, land and sea boundaries and other affairs related to consulates.

Richard Heinrichs is an American production designer, effects artist, art director and film producer. He is well known for his work on the Pirates of the Caribbean series, Ang Lee's Hulk and The Nightmare Before Christmas. He started his career on visual effects on the other world sequence in The Watcher in the Woods, Tim Burton's Hansel and Gretel and Vincent to later work on Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Nutcracker: The Motion Picture. He also worked on Frankenweenie. He won an Academy Award for Best Art Direction for Sleepy Hollow (1999) and received further nominations for Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004) and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006).