Due to a flour dust allergy, he has not set foot inside the bakery for some time. And even in his shops, he will rarely sell Hinkelsteine, Kifferkruste and Elsässer bread from behind the counter due to a lack of time: Josef Hinkel has been deputy mayor of the state capital for more than a year and he will leave his mark as a CDU politician. With apparent ease, the 62-year-old former chief of- and Prinz Karneval has so far taken on a number of different roles and changed costumes accordingly. He is an entrepreneur, has become a brand in its own right and is an excellent networker with many connections. And now the Düsseldorf-born man with the cheerful smile so typical of the Rhineland region (“jeck und nett”) is aiming for a serious political career. We meet Josef Hinkel at the Town Hall, in the office he “inherited” from his predecessor Friedrich G. Conzen.

Jonas van Blanken is quite a diverse entrepreneur: he is a perfumer and founder of the brand OSKAR Natural Skincare, managing director and co-founder of the film and photo production company CIRCL Studio and managing director and co-founder of the event studio CIRCL Space. The 36-year-old has lived in very different places around the globe – until he lost his heart in and to Düsseldorf.

After a career of more than 20 years in the beauty industry, Marie-Eve Schröder moved to Facebook, now Meta, in 2019. As Group Director DACH Region, she is part of the global company’s top management. Born in France, she has lived in Düsseldorf for 14 years and has found her home here. During a walk in Benrath’s Schlosspark with VIVID publisher Rainer Kunst, she spoke about plans and visions of Meta and the Metaverse, about data protection and fake news on the internet, the role of sustainability in a tech company – and about her love for the state capital.