Adrian Weselin (M.S. in MIT ’26) did not come to graduate school to make a sharp career pivot. He enrolled with the intention of refining the skills he had spent years building, and facilitating a move from general consulting into a more technology-adjacent, enterprise-focused leadership role.
With more than two decades of experience across consulting, operations, technology, and nonprofit leadership, Weselin has spent much of his career working at the intersection of strategy and execution. He has led teams; managed multimillion-dollar budgets; founded companies; and advised organizations across hospitality, manufacturing, and technology.
What he sought next was precision.
“I wanted to focus on evolving my skill sets within the tech space,” Weselin says. “Not just from a consulting standpoint, but really understanding the frameworks of how technology and business decisions are designed and deployed together.”
That led him to the University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce and its M.S. in the Management of Information Technology (MSMIT) Program.
Pursuing Continuous Improvement
After earning his undergraduate degree in Psychology from Virginia Commonwealth University, with a minor in Business Administration Management, Weselin built a consulting and operations career. Over time, he added a master’s degree in Cybersecurity from Old Dominion University, then, an Executive MBA from Cornell. But something was still missing.
“The MBA gave me depth and also width,” he says. “But this program explains the ‘why’ behind the work you’re doing in technology and how it is engaging in different areas.”
What he wanted was a management- and operations-focused program that treated technology as a strategic leverage point rather than a purely technical discipline. In evaluating his options, Weselin found that some programs leaned heavily towards technical specialization, while the MSMIT program emphasized business context, decision-making frameworks, and enterprise impact.
Finding the Right Fit at McIntire
The appeal of the MSMIT program extended beyond UVA’s top-tier reputation to its intentional design. “It’s one year, with a focused curriculum bridging business and technology, specifically AI,” Weselin says. “That was a big selling point.” The accelerated format meant he could quickly gain cutting-edge skills without disrupting his career trajectory.
More importantly, the program is designed for professionals already in industry—people who bring experience into the classroom rather than starting from theory.
“It’s where you really get to capitalize because you’re taking all of that experience that the students bring in from different industries, and you’re able to pick their brains,” Weselin says of his fellow professionals representing federal agencies, private industry, nonprofits, and consulting firms.
Reinforcing the Right Track
At the enterprise level, Weselin describes his role as a translator: someone who can move between technical teams and business leaders without losing intent or value.
“A strategy is only as good as the team you’re working with and your ability to communicate it,” he says. “Now I’m better able to understand why the technical team wants to do something and translate that into business outcomes for leadership. Or push back when I see there’s a better way.”
He’s already applied that thinking in real time. While consulting for a Washington, DC-based nonprofit, Weselin identified redundant technology tools that had been implemented to manage data separation and helped redesign the system using existing platforms. The result: an improved process with fewer tools, lower costs, improved access, and cleaner data governance.
Attaining a New Level of Fluency
Weselin is clear about what the MSMIT is—and what it isn’t. “It’s not an MBA replacement,” he says. “It’s MBA-linked in a good way.”
He goes on to explain that the program equips students to participate meaningfully in high-stakes conversations about architecture, security, governance, and value creation.
The program’s access to industry leaders reinforces that mindset. The MSMIT program regularly brings in C-suite executives and senior technology leaders for candid discussions and Q&A sessions.
“We’ve had speakers from OpenAI, CarMax, and others,” Weselin says. “Those conversations are incredibly valuable.”
Just as important: The MSMIT students are also full UVA students, with access across schools and disciplines. “If there is a symposium that you want to attend, you can,” he says. “If you’re working on a medical concept and need research information, you can reach out to the medical school, broker some of those conversations, and get the insights and data points you need.”
Focused on Future Innovation
That breadth and access align with Weselin’s long-term goal: leading enterprise-wide technology initiatives and, ultimately, serving in the C-suite.
Weselin says students who are “eager, curious to learn, and open and adaptable” will thrive in the program.
For Weselin, the MSMIT program aligns experience and education with where enterprise leadership is headed next. “This program was designed to bridge the gap between the two backgrounds of technology and business to be able to focus on those frameworks and how we deploy those within various different industries,” he says.
