Creators and Hosts!

Andrea Ferrero became an educator over a decade ago to be part of changing the world. Teaching on the Navajo and Hopi reservation where she grew up, Andrea saw how even the brightest students faltered when money moved from math class to practical application. Looking for tools to address issues of educational equity, Andrea stepped into the world of financial literacy and ed-tech.
She brings over a decade of experience in teaching and learning, curriculum and program development, and community capacity building together to design award winning educational programs and digital products. Andrea holds a teaching credential in PreK-12th grade multiple subjects and two Master’s in Educational Leadership and Curriculum & Instruction with Multicultural Contexts.
Leading Pockets Change, Andrea works with schools, organizations, and businesses to make finance fun through innovative educational approaches and meaningful ed-tech tools. She has served as a delegate to the World Innovation Summit in Qatar, the ASCD Supervision and Curriculum Development Delegation in China, the Multi-Age Learning Institute in New Zealand, and the Mozilla Open Leaders in England. Andrea is also a board member of the California Jump$tart Coalition.
She is always happy to share coffee and a conversation about changing the world through the development of financial capability.

Brian ‘Dyalekt’ Kushner moved from St. Croix to New York to study acting and law. He also liked to rap. After witnessing civil rights injustices at the law firm he worked for, he dropped both the job and the law classes, pursuing the arts instead. Performances at the Nuyorican led him to Hip Hop Theater, writing plays that have been performed on stages across the world. He didn’t sleep on the rapping either, releasing music and touring internationally. His first album/one man play Square Peg Syndrome helped him get named to the Public Theater’s Emerging Writer’s Group.
When Dyalekt was invited to present at a workshop for New York SCORES, a soccer and poetry program in Harlem and the Bronx, his perspective on performance changed. Students are much better audience members than bar patrons, and Dyalekt found he had a natural affinity for facilitation. Hip Hopping with students like he did with MCs in a cypher led to better engagement, grades, and overall attitude toward school than the usual class.
Dyalekt designed curricula that lined up the elements of Hip Hop with learning styles. Through Hip Hop, or rather, by Hip Hopping, students could assess their tendencies and use them to their benefit. Furthermore, the community aspects of Hip Hop show students how to be responsible citizens, peer mentors, and advocates for justice. Dyalekt brought this curriculum, along with his album/play back home to St. Croix, rocking with 17 orgs and over 400 students. They produced 2 books of poetry, an album, and a documentary.
He’s rocked (performed/taught/keynoted) everywhere from conferences like AFCPE and Prosperity Now, to stages like Bowery Ballroom and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, to classrooms at Yale, keynotes at Harvard, & the local barbershop. His latest jam is the Museum of Dead Words, an album/play/research presentation about words that turn conversations into fights, that was most recently presented to the Society for Linguistic Anthropology.
At Pockets Change he uses hip-hop pedagogy to demystify personal finance and help students take control of their relationship with money. He co-hosts the Get Shameless podcast, which discusses personal finance and racial economic inclusion, and was the poetry writer for NYC DOE’s WORD UP program, where he converted phonics lessons into rhymes.

Pamela Capalad is a Certified Financial Planner™ and Accredited Financial Counselor™ and has been in the financial services industry since 2008. Her mission is to help people who felt ashamed or embarrassed about money have a safe and friendly place to talk about it and make real financial progress. She founded and ran Brunch & Budget for 10 years and co-founded Get Shameless, Inc. to further her mission.

While doing deep research into the racial wealth divide and how it directly affected her clients of color, Pam and her husband, Dyalekt, created See Change, a financial liberation community for creators of color. They regularly teach workshop and speak on how art, culture, and media are used to perpetuate racial wealth inequality and how artists have the power to change the narrative.

Pam has been featured in the Washington Post, Teen Vogue, Huffington Post, Vice Magazine, and was named New York Magazine’s Best of New York 2019. She was named one of Investments News 40 Under 40 in 2016, Financial Advisor Magazine's Young Advisors to Watch in 2019, and received AFCPE's Financial Planning Center of the Year award in 2022. Pam is a Global Good Fund Fellow, class of 2022.