University of Mary Washington’s Continuing & Professional Studies Department is excited to announce the 2026 Business Acumen Series – a series of one-day seminars aimed at building leadership and business skills in the Fredericksburg region.
The Business Acumen Series (BAS) will combine university knowledge and the practical application of innovative tools to drive your organization’s mission and deliver results.
AI is a transformative tool that continues to disrupt nearly every market and space. The 2026 Business Acumen Series will focus on ways you can use AI to enhance your business or organizational practices to optimize workflow without losing the human-centered components of your work.
Change is the only constant. AI, evolving business landscapes, and shifting cultural norms are transforming work environments at an unprecedented pace. To stay relevant, leaders and organizations must adapt—or risk obsolescence. While individual behavior change is challenging, reshaping organizational behaviors for tangible business results can seem even harder.
Today, the vast majority of individual and organizational change efforts fail. With the right skills and knowledge, leaders can understand the science around their influence and inspire others to cultivate and embrace ideas while moving forward.
Using an interactive and experiential environment, participants in this session will:
- Learn why most change efforts fail
- Explore and embrace best practices for leading others through change, on an ethical foundation, to achieve desired results
- Understand why people do not truly transition without an emotional connection being made
- Explore best practice change management models which help enable measurable results
Speaker: Mike Allison, Vice President of Talent & Culture, Spotlight | Analyst Relations
Learn more & register >> 2026 Business Acumen Series: Leading Others Through Change in an AI-Accelerated World – Open Enrollment
