The best influencers from Cologne

In 2026 Lukas Podolski ended his playing career with a Polish cup win — the first player to take national cups in five different countries. The Netflix documentary “Poldi” followed in June 2026. A second life runs alongside, as an entrepreneur: the barbershop brand Barbertown, Ice Cream United, the street-football project Strassenkicker — and, for years now, the Cologne youth charity RheinFlanke.

Carolin Kebekus took her stage show “SHESUS” to 37 venues and published a book alongside it, “8000 Arten, als Mutter zu versagen”. Her own show has run on ARD since 2020; before that, “PussyTerror TV” won her the Grimme Award. In autumn 2026 she takes on Joko Winterscheidt in “Wer stiehlt mir die Show?”.

Julia Willecke, known online since 2013 as Julia Beautx, started on YouTube at fourteen. Today she acts in the ZDF series “Frühling”, won the 2024 season of survival show “7 vs. Wild” on New Zealand’s South Island, and runs two brands of her own: a perfume sold at Rossmann and the matcha label skuis from Kagoshima.

Stefano Zarrella has built a business out of his recipe videos: two cookbooks, a podcast with his brother and, since 2026, his own frozen pizza in the supermarket aisle. The cooking still happens with family, usually with his sister-in-law or his father at the stove.

For one stream Zarbex rode 650 kilometres on a recumbent bike from Marseille to Barcelona, for another 600 on an e-scooter from Milan to Munich. Absurdly long routes become multi-day broadcasts. The Stream Awards named him newcomer of the year in 2024 and, a year later, the fastest-growing streamer; he also hosts the talent show “Ich kann nix, was kannst du”.

Before Ana Johnson stepped in front of a camera she worked as a nursery teacher. She began in 2016 with a daily YouTube format from Cologne, her book “Inspire yourself!” made the Spiegel bestseller list, the Sunday podcast “Die Johnsons” has run since 2019 — and renovating her own house produced the furniture label homsy.

Paula Döringer trains for HYROX races and designed her own capsule, the CAMI Collection, for the sportswear label OACE. The same circle of friends turns up in almost every post, calling each other “Bördels”. With one of them, Jan, she takes the podcast “Freundschaft Minus” to eight stages in autumn 2026, Hamburg to Vienna.

Dancing is one half — Anna von Klinski runs her own workshops in Cologne and recorded a dance workout with Gymondo. The other is ENŪDA, the loungewear label she founded in 2024 with Ana Kohler. Her own life runs in between: the master’s degree, the proposal in September 2025, the preparations ever since.

Paramedic, rescue engineer, doctoral candidate at RWTH Aachen — Luis Teichmann still works shifts and writes bestsellers about the state of the system. He started in 2020 with sketches from the ambulance. Now he alternates between one-liners from the night shift and long explainers on sepsis, heat emergencies or the German 116117 helpline.

Laura Wontorra fronted DAZN’s Bundesliga nights for five years, until she left the broadcaster in August 2026; she still hosts “DSDS” and “Grill den Henssler”. For the 2026 World Cup she made a four-part series with her father Jörg, and most of what she posts comes from inside a stadium. Add to that her fashion label WÔNE Studios and a team in the Icon League.

Kisu has been showing family life since 2011, first on YouTube, now mostly house, garden and parenting. In 2022 she founded the brand Nestliebe with her sister: Montessori wooden toys, routine cards, the children’s book series “Pippa Panda”. Her work with bike maker Puky won a German Design Council award in 2026.

Pia Tillmann has acted in the soap “Köln 50667” since 2013 and has been part of the regular cast since 2020. She met her husband Zico on set, and in 2023 the two moved into the reality show “Sommerhaus der Stars”. In 2026 she helped build a custom bike for Harley-Davidson. Family life she tells in short clips in which something usually goes wrong.

Jan Kraume dropped out of university in 2019 and built the sportswear label OACE with Atef Al Soufi — at the end of 2025 Forbes counted around 30 employees and more than half a million customers a year. Since January 2026 he has co-owned the Cologne gym Iron & Soul; between collection drops and Hyrox races he shows his own training.

Lena Terlutter doesn’t only show fashion, she sells it. What you mostly see are looks from St. Tropez, Portofino or Knokke, and behind them sits a retail business. Since 2010 she has run Boutique Belgique in Cologne’s Belgian Quarter, now with three further shops; before that she modelled herself, and in 2014 her city portrait “Cologne’s Got Style” came out.

Yvonne Pferrer became known as Anna Kowalski in “Köln 50667”, the soap set in her home city, a role she played until 2016. Since then she has been travelling. Kilimanjaro solo, a Greenland diary, a riding expedition across Mongolia, Canada in stages — every trip becomes a series, filmed out of a camper she built herself.