Prof. Dr. Martin Zierold is head of the Institute for Culture and Media Management at the Hamburg University of Music and Theatre, where he holds the Zajadacz Endowed Professorship for Innovation through Digitalisation. There he studies questions of cultural leadership, strategy and organisational development in the face of the major social transformation processes of the present. Martin Zierold also works freelance as a systemic coach, teaching trainer and consultant.

Since March 2020, he has been the host of the podcast "Wie geht's? Culture in Times of the Corona Virus", which reflects on culture and society in times of change in more than 90 conversations with cultural managers, artists and experts from cultural politics and academia.

Before working in Hamburg, he was Professor of Arts Management and Cultural Studies at Karlshochschule International University in Karlsruhe. After studying Communication Studies and Culture, Communication & Management at the University of Münster, he completed his doctorate with a thesis on transformations of social memory in digital media cultures. He then worked for two years as press spokesman for the Tonkünstler Orchestra and the Grafenegg International Music Festival in Austria. From 2007-2013 he was Academic Manager and Principal Investigator of the International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (GCSC) at the University of Giessen.

Martin Zierold is involved in numerous juries and is, among other things, a member of the board of the Kulturpolitische Gesellschaft Kupoge, a member of the board of trustees of the KAIROS Award of the Alfred Toepfer Foundation FVS and on the advisory board of NEXT Mannheim.