Amplifying the Culture with Rashaad Lambert
Written by Erica Jeanine
Rashaad Lambert is an award-winning marketing architect (or marketect ®), philanthropist, and community builder. For more than 15 years, Lambert has aimed to level the playing field for Black professionals and create more equitable pathways via his expertise in marketing, diversity & inclusion, and corporate consulting. In his role as SVP at Forbes., Lambert is establishing the media brand as the preeminent community for young Black and Brown entrepreneurs. Prior to his appointment, Lambert founded For(bes) The Culture, an organization that helps current and future leaders of color to connect, collaborate and drive change within underrepresented communities. Since its inception in 2017, For(bes) The Culture has grown organically to welcome thousands of members, and expanded its popular in-person #CultureTalks platform to Instagram where high-profile leaders across diverse industries and sectors are featured. In addition to serving as Strategic Partner of Social Impact at TD Bank, Lambert is founder of Sporty Marketing Group, the world’s only six sigma marketing agency. For over a decade, Lambert has worked with multi-million dollar brands and companies including Villa, Club Corp, and MyPhillyLawyer, as well as multi-billion dollar companies such as Uber, JetSmarter, Adidas, the NBA, and the NFL. In 2010 he founded Lambert Legacy Charities, a nonprofit organization created to help alleviate deep poverty in Southeastern Pennsylvania.
“The most important thing you can do, is not forget that you’re Black. ”
WHAT WAS YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH MONEY LIKE GROWING UP?
Rashaad: In my household, I was the youngest of my siblings and have an older brother and sister. We were raised in West Philly by my mother because my dad wasn't really around. I didn’t know It at the time but because I was fortunate enough to start working at an early age, I got into entrepreneurship and how to fit my thinking around it, at a young age. I would think about how I could make money because I wanted to help my mom and family out but also to have my own money. I never liked being told no or that I couldn’t have something because it cost to much or there was no money for it. That eventually resulted in me telling myself I would be the one to fund things I wanted and any experience I thought I should have. I initially started enjoying the journey as a result of helping out with my family business. I never got an allowance or anything like that and everyone around me was talking about money when I got into business. My aunts and uncles were into the wholesaling business and had retail stores all over West Philly and in malls. As a family we would go out and help out with the stores operations or sometimes just go help out in the mall. Eventually my cousin and I were able to earn and work our own stand and while we worked my family instilled the idea of how a business works not just what we would inherit from it. We were educated on how everything worked from the highest position to the lowest ones. All my family were having conversations about money and it easily became very prevalent. Since becoming an adult I now know my mother specifically wanted to instill a sense of community and the idea of what having one felt and looked like in me. Steve, my photographer, calls me “the spirit of Ubuntu” meaning, I am because you are or you are because I am, like seeing someone as yourself. And I truly believe that’s what my mom intended to instill in me financially. Yes, doing well is important, but doing good is extremely important. So growing up I learned to never forget that giving back to what and who helped you to your achievements along the way.
TELL US ABOUT YOUR CURRENT BUSINESS VENTURES?
Rashaad: Sporty Marketing Group was actually my first full-time business when I left corporate America in 2009 and my 11th or 12th year anniversary of that just actually just passed, I lost count. I really became a full-time entrepreneur after starting Sporty Marketing Group, It’s a platform and resource that allows me to help anyone who had brick-and-mortar businesses transaction system. I would help them grow by moving into the 21st century with training and translating sales into online sales. The company grew from there and I was able to do more like branding and experiential marketing. That ending up splitting off into another agency, that became Culture Makers and that eventually became For(bes) The Culture just in a different way. Lastly, there’s Cerebellum H2O, my alkaline water company and iMunch Cafe, which is a healthy living and lifestyle cafe that has all halal food. If you ever come to Philly, it’s on 1233 North 31st Street.
HOW HAS YOUR CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCE INFLUENCED HOW YOU RAISE YOUR CHILDREN?
Rashaad: Of all the different things I’ve learned, I make a strong effort to apply everything that was of value to me. Being a teenage parent taught me so many lessons, I have had multiple opportunities to grow and I've mature because of them. I think the most influencing and interesting part of my journey has been with self education, it’s a rewarding process. From all my lessons in self education I’m able to implement these things in what I teach my kids and in my own life. It's easy to get on a panel and talk about it but explaining financial concepts to your own children is something totally different and it is not a dice rule. There is no exact science to making them understand because they will eventually experience things and have to get it right on their own. I may get on a panel and misspeak, say something incorrectly or teach a class and use a figure that's outdated. However, when I'm dealing with my household I have to make sure that it all makes sense because in a way, at ages 18 and 12, I think my children look at me differently than my students do. I've stressed the importance of credit, how to utilize business credit lines and alot on investing into crypto, already so these things aren’t foreign to them. And It’s so funny, we've also been having these conversations every time we'll be at an event or if we're in a car and I'm playing a podcast and somebody says something that I've said to them before. They’ll always be like, you told us that before dad and I'll just give them a look because they could get this information from anywhere but them having it from me means something.
“Pop culture is a part of Black culture, because it’s propped up by black culture, they can’t be the same thing.”
DOES THE BLACK COMMUNITY NEED A CODE OF CONDUCT?
Rashaad: I agree and disagree with that because it can easily become extremely subjective and is even more difficult to determine because we live in a microwave cancel culture generation. It’s also hard to navigate because there are extreme deal breakers and stuff that it depends. For example, somebody may tweet the wrong thing and it may not have meant what it was taken as. And as a result there's pressure from twitter and everyone else to cancel the person who made the tweet. Those sort of things are subjective. Then the parts of it that I do agree with and would want to put my focus are on things like group and cooperative economics and qualitative nepotism. All these things go hand and hand but have also become something like a philosophy for me and was my philosophy when I started For(bes) The Culture, We don't have the option for second and third chances in our community at this point. Instead, we need to begin to focus on making sure that when there are opportunities presented, we are sending our best and brightest because that’ll keep the door open. The only way to continue to keep the door open is by making sure that the people that we send through them are prepared. To take the opportunity and handle it in the best way possible so more opportunities come flowing in. The first time that somebody goes through the door and doesn't deliver the door shuts and we can't have that. It’s the best way I could describe it and I'm not a gatekeeper but in that context I actually am.
WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE THOSE TRANSITIONING FROM FINANCIAL SECURITY TO FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE?
Rashaad: So the most important thing that you can do is not forget that you're black and especially, when you're spending your money or hiring. When you’re doing things like looking for contractors, posting ad or praising other people's businesses and anything like that. Always keep in the front of your mind and not in the back, that you’re black before anything and that's how they look at you and that's where you should operate from. We got 28 and some change left before the year 2050 and this conversation and the things I’m saying to you right not resonate with you when that time comes. We can't and shouldn’t enter a space where we have the largest number majority and no real power, any resources or the ability to compete in the worlds economy. As a people we need to unite and not just in the U.S., we have to become our own world superpower.
WHAT IS YOUR PASSION AND WHEN DID YOU KNOW?
Rashaad: My passion has always been building things, destroying them and then rebuilding them to make them better. I used to think I wanted to be an architect then I thought my passion was in marketing but then, somewhere I developed a passion for community development. There’s a common thread between all three of those, my passion for change because I can see things and have visions of things being different. After that I just act on it and makes sure It doesn't just remain a vision, I don't like to ever sit on ideas for to long. I'm the type of person that you're going to tell an idea and if it’s something that’s going to benefit my people, I’m going to try my very best to make it happen. And I wouldn't say that's my superpower because it comes naturally, I feel like my superpower is the ability to start over like nothing ever happened and keep going. It's also not just the fact that I can build something but that I can also look at it and see it from 20 steps ahead. If I was looking at a pile of dirt, I would be able to see the skyscraper that’s going to be built and what it’ll look like.
WHAT ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES DO YOU SEE IN THE CULTURE?
Rashaad: I believe Black culture is a collection of common lived experiences, of our history and our current trajectory, which could include some pop culture. It’s not that I don't think pop culture is a part of black culture because it is actually propped up by black culture. So they can't really be the same things, it's two separate things like the chicken, egg scenario and we definitely came first because we were before pop culture. Black culture has fueled some of the largest movements in pop culture and in every industry. With all of these large movements being fueled by Black culture we have a strong power and influence over things. Whenever something is created by us and becomes a popular rise in our community, it then gets transformed into something that is used for profit and that's the part that shouldn’t be outside of our control. So when I’m asked a question like what is Black culture, it's the things that we create, how we relate to each other and the biggest part… our language. Once those things makes it into film and television we already know it's on it’s way out that end and making an exit from Black culture. When you see somebody on tv saying bling, bling, bling, that phrase was already long gone. And If you look at like an app like clubhouse, we took that platform to its max popularity and then it was over for it and on to the next thing. That's what will continue to happen in black culture when we don't have our hands on or in it.
“We have to become our own world superpower.”
Are you interested in connecting with Rashaad Lambert?
Want to learn more about Forbes the Culture?
Website: Forbestheculture.com
Instagram: @RashaadLambert & Forbes The Culture