Hello! I’m Rashaad Lambert, a marketing architect, community builder, and perpetual entrepreneur from West Philadelphia. My work lives at the intersection of culture, community, and business outcomes.
I started my first business at 10, cleaning my mother’s church and other local churches in the neighborhood. That early hustle taught me how to serve people directly, take responsibility, and get paid for solving real problems.
In 2005, I created iSpit Marketing, an event planning company helping artists and analog brick-and-mortar businesses transition into the digital era. Around the same time, I launched IAmNotARapperiSpit.com, a platform that supported artists and gave people in other countries access to news when major sites were blocked. That site later helped springboard Podcast Wednesdays into the international market.
In 2013, those experiments evolved into iRadio: On Demand, one of the first Black podcast networks, where I curated and produced a slate of five shows. Long before podcasting and “creator economy” became buzzwords, we were independently building our own distribution.
In 2009, as the 2008 downturn squeezed smaller firms, iSpit Marketing absorbed several of them instead of letting them fold and became Sporty Marketing Group, the world’s only Six Sigma-based marketing agency. Through Sporty and later CultureMakers, I’ve led work with brands across industries, including Uber, TD Bank, JetSmarter, Meryll Lynch, WNBA, Sony, Apple, Meta, Forbes, Warner Bros, the NBA, and the NFL.
In January 2017, Sporty evolved into CultureMakers, reflecting a broader mission: designing culture-first initiatives for brands, institutions, and communities. Later that year, I founded For(bes) The Culture as an independent community for Black and Brown leaders. In 2018, we partnered with Forbes, and in January 2020 I became Senior Vice President at the company, working across the brand to drive growth and inclusion while scaling that community.
From 2019 to 2022, I also served as Strategic Partner of Social Impact at TD Bank, helping align corporate resources with the real needs of under-served communities.
My philanthropic work runs through Lambert Legacy Charities, founded in 2010, which uses “experiential philanthropy” to support people in deep poverty across Southeastern Pennsylvania, including more than 50,000 people served through initiatives like the Annual Philadelphia Inter-Communal Giveback.
Today, I’m focused on scaling nicethings Beverages, the adult beverage company I co-own, and CultureMakers via the projects that will outlive me — architecting spaces, systems, and opportunities where Black and Brown people can build, own, and thrive.