Ms. Priyanka Mary Francis IAS has been appointed as the new Director of Tourism in Karnataka, in place of Mr. B. Ramu IAS.

Prior to this Ms. Priyanka was served as the District Collector of Uduppi District in Karnataka, a post which she handled with great diligence and responsibility. Her name was hit headline when Priyanka and her colleague Assistant Commissioner Shilpa Nag IAS were attacked by people from the sand mafia during a mid night raid operation in Kundapur taluk, Karnataka. 

Ms. Priyanka a 2009 batch Indian Administrative Service officer of Karnataka cadre started her civil service carrier as Assistant Commissioner of Belgaum and later in  2012  she was promoted as Commissioner of  Belgaum City Corporation and became  the first lady Commissioner. She took charge as CEO of Udupi Zilla Panchayat from November 17, 2015 and later promoted as the Deputy Commissioner and District Collector of Udupi District on February 23, 2017.  Priyanka also took several initiatives to promote tourism Uduppi district  as a  well known beach and hill destination  in Karnataka.

Ms. Priyanka, a B.Tech (Electronics Instrumentation) graduate, hailing from Trivandrum, quit her job in  ISRO  in 2008 to pursue her dreams of becoming an IAS officer. A year later she cracked the IAS exams by securing the 54th rank.