About Taliera
Taliera is a strategic advisory firm specializing in the beverage, consumer packaged goods, and broader business growth sectors. We partner with founders, leadership teams, family offices and investors who are serious about building lasting brands, optimizing M&A and other complex situations.
Our Principles
What drives us
Clarity First
We cut through complexity to find the signal. Every recommendation is grounded in clear reasoning.
Partnership
We work alongside your team, not above it. Your success is the only metric that matters.
Global Perspective
Markets are interconnected. We bring international experience to local challenges.
Craft & Rigor
Deep respect for product craft, matched with analytical discipline and commercial acumen.
Integrity
In who we are, who we deal with, and how we operate. The means are the ends, not the other way around.
Founder
Smoke Wallin
Chairman, Taliera · Managing Director & Partner, STS Capital Partners
Smoke Wallin is a CEO, entrepreneur, and M&A advisor who has led billions in transactions across more than 50 deals — as a CEO, CFO, and advisor — in industries ranging from technology and healthcare to consumer products and media. As a Managing Director and Partner at STS Capital Partners, a pure sell-side firm, he guides founders and families to extraordinary exits with international strategic buyers.
Beyond the deal, Smoke is known for navigating the human side of business — partner disputes, succession, next-generation transitions, and the question of how to align success with purpose. His calm presence and ability to distill complex, emotionally charged situations to their essence bring parties together for outcomes others can't reach.
He founded Taliera in 2006 to incubate, celebrate, and advise iconic brands, and has advised CEOs on capital structure, mergers, and acquisitions ever since. He helped build National Wine & Spirits from a $150M single-state distributor into a billion-dollar beverage company and served as Chair and President of the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America (WSWA). He founded eSkye, a pioneering B2B platform for beverage-alcohol, and led it to two successful exits.
Smoke is a member of the IPI Campden Wealth family-office community (Winter Forum Co-Chair), hosts The Smoke Trail podcast, and is the author of the forthcoming A Smoke Trail to the Fire Within. He is a recipient of the E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year and Vanderbilt's Distinguished Alumnus Award, holds an MBA from Vanderbilt and a BS in Agricultural Economics from Cornell, and lives in Sedona, Arizona with his wife, singer-songwriter Anitra Carr.