Marianna Ellingson is currently the Acting Director-General for the Office of Tourism, Arts and Culture (OTAC) of Papua New Guinea. OTAC is the coordinating agency for the tourism, arts and culture sector which has three (3) sector agencies: the National Cultural Commission (NCC), the National Museum and Art Gallery (NMAG) and the Tourism Promotion Authority (TPA). An experienced executive manager and development planner with 38 years of national and international professional experience, she holds a Bachelor of Arts degree (1977) from the University of Papua New Guinea, a Masters in International Affairs (Development Studies) from the University of Ohio, USA (1997) made possible by a Fulbright Scholarship award, and a Post Graduate Certificate in Strategic Management from the University of Bristol, UK (2010). Her last post was as Acting Director, Strategic Planning and Evaluation Division (SPED) and before that as Adviser/Head of Planning in SPED, both at the Commonwealth Secretariat, London, UK from 2004-2010.

Prior to that appointment, she held the post of Deputy Secretary, Department of National Planning and Rural Development and briefly in 2004 as Acting Secretary of the Department. She sits on a number of corporate boards and is very active in community affairs. SHe is a former Papua New Guinean diplomat who served in Indonesia in the early ‘80s. She is also a singer/songwriter and recording artist with CHM Studios in Port Moresby. She is a Full Writer Member of the Australasian Performing Rights Limited (APRA), Member of the Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society (AMCOS), and currently Deputy Chair of the PNG-USA Alumni Association. She hails from Kwato Island in the Milne Bay Province of Papua New Guinea.