Most teachers will tell you they fell into the profession by accident. Few can say they spent thirteen years balancing financial statements before they ever stood in front of a whiteboard. Krisha Dela Cruz Camus did exactly that, trading a finance career in the Philippines for a high school classroom in Polk County, Florida, where she now teaches teenagers how money, business, and ambition actually work in the real world.
At 43, she is a Business Education Teacher at Discovery High School, but her story begins far from any classroom or boardroom. It starts in Poonbato, a barangay inside the Loob Bunga Resettlement Area in Botolan, Zambales, a community built to house families displaced by the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo.
A childhood shaped by rebuilding
Growing up among families who had lost nearly everything left a permanent mark on how she sees opportunity. Watching neighbors rebuild from ash taught her something no lesson plan could.
“Growing up in a resettlement community established after the eruption of Mount Pinatubo taught me resilience, perseverance, gratitude, and the value of hard work,” she shares with TGFM. That environment also planted a conviction she still carries into every class: that education is one of the most powerful tools for transforming lives.
It is a belief she states plainly. “Coming from a community rebuilt after the eruption of Mount Pinatubo reminds me every day that our circumstances do not determine our future.”
The thirteen-year detour
Before any of the teaching credentials, there was the ledger. For thirteen years, Krisha worked as a Finance Head in the Philippines, immersed in financial management, accounting, business operations, and entrepreneurship. It was a solid, successful career by any measure, and not the obvious launchpad for a life in education.
But the finance years were never wasted. They became her curriculum. Today she teaches Entrepreneurship, Accounting Applications, and Business Communications, and she draws constantly on that real-world experience to show students how the subjects connect to actual careers. “Those experiences now allow me to bring real-world business knowledge into the classroom and help students understand how education connects to future careers and life opportunities,” she explains.
Her appetite for learning did not stop with the career change. She earned a Doctor of Education in Educational Administration and a Master of Business Administration, and is awaiting graduation for a Master of Arts in Education major in Special Education.
A classroom in Florida
The move to the United States came in 2022 through an international teacher exchange program. The transition was not seamless. Like many overseas Filipino workers, the former finance head had to adapt to an unfamiliar educational system, a new culture, and a different set of professional expectations all at once.
“Adjusting to unfamiliar expectations while establishing myself in a new country required patience, perseverance, and a willingness to continuously learn and grow,” she recalls. When the adjustment felt heavy, she leaned on faith, family, and the colleagues who became a second support system. Those harder stretches, she says, only sharpened her resilience.
The payoff shows up in her students. Krisha advises Discovery High School’s Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) chapter, mentoring teenagers in leadership, community service, and competition. Under her guidance, the chapter climbed from Silver Champion Chapter recognition to Gold Champion Chapter status. Her own work has earned the Excellence in the Teaching Profession Award and an International Service Award presented in Manhattan, New York.
Yet she is quick to put the trophies in their place. “Beyond awards and achievements, my greatest fulfillment comes from knowing that I can positively influence the lives of students.” The moments that stay with her are smaller and harder to frame: a student gaining confidence, earning a certification, realizing they can reach a goal they once thought impossible.
What she wants kababayans to hear
For Filipinos building lives far from home, the educator offers advice grounded in her own climb. “Always remember your purpose and never stop investing in your personal and professional growth,” she says. Life abroad can be difficult, but she believes perseverance, faith, humility, and determination can carry a person through almost anything.
She is careful to frame the sacrifice as an investment rather than a loss. The hardships endured overseas, in her view, should translate into lasting opportunities for families and the generations that follow. Stay rooted in your values, she urges, keep trustworthy people close, and never forget where you came from.
Looking ahead, she wants to expand her impact beyond a single classroom through curriculum development, financial literacy programs, and inclusive learning initiatives, and eventually to mentor future educators. She is especially driven by career-connected learning, the idea that students should leave school equipped not just with academic knowledge but with skills they can actually use.
Her measure of success, in the end, is modest and specific. If her journey from a resettlement community in Zambales to a finance office and finally to a Florida classroom can move even one young person from a small town to chase a bigger life, that, she says, is among her greatest accomplishments.
