Martin Kriewaldt's documented background is connected with Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, where he studied law and built his legal and business career. His professional life developed within the city's legal and corporate communities.
Kriewaldt studied at the University of Queensland, a university established in Brisbane by a Queensland Act of Parliament in 1909. He completed a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Laws with Honours there, and a University Medal is recorded alongside his First Class Honours in his professional profile. The university's law teaching is now centred in the T.C. Beirne School of Law.
He was admitted to the Queensland bar in 1974, which marked his entry into professional legal practice in the state.
Kriewaldt was a partner of Feez Ruthning, a Brisbane law firm. The firm developed from practices founded in the nineteenth century, including one established by Robert Little in 1846, and was formed through a merger in 1911. It kept the Feez Ruthning name through later changes and became part of the national practice of Allens Arthur Robinson in 1996. A former colleague at the firm, Patrick Keane, later became a justice of the High Court of Australia, and Kriewaldt was quoted in The Age upon that appointment.
Kriewaldt's later career centred on company boards. He was chairman of Hyne & Son Pty Ltd, a timber manufacturing company founded in 1882 by Richard Matthews Hyne, which operates from Maryborough, Queensland, and is privately owned. He was also chairman of XLam and of Mayflower Enterprises, the holding company for Hyne Timber and XLam, and he served as a non-executive director of the medical technology company ImpediMed.
His listed-company roles included the chairmanship of Central Petroleum Limited's board as an independent non-executive director from 2017, the Australian oil and gas exploration company. Earlier board positions included the chairmanship of Suncorp, Suncorp Property Trust, Infratil Australia and Thin Technologies, and directorships at BrisConnections, Campbell Brothers, Oil Search, Macarthur Coal, GWA and QDL.
The Australian Institute of Company Directors is the peak body representing company directors in Australia. It traces its origins to the Institute of Directors, formed by royal charter in the United Kingdom in 1906, and its Australian successor bodies merged on 1 January 1990 to form the present institute. Kriewaldt is a Life Fellow of the institute and has served as president of its Queensland Division.
Kriewaldt has also been involved in Brisbane's cultural and academic life. He served as chairman of Opera Queensland, an opera company based in South Brisbane, and is an honorary life member of the company. He was also a member of the Senate of the University of Queensland, the university's governing body.
Kriewaldt is documented as a mentor in the Australian Institute of Company Directors mentoring programme for women.
