smoke wallin
Managing Director
Smoke is a CEO, entrepreneur, M&A leader, investor, naturalist, and humanitarian with extensive leadership and board experience across industries, including consumer products, beverage, cannabis, distribution, finance, hospitality, health and wellness, and technology.
He is co-founder and director of Dignity Moves, which aims to end unsheltered street homelessness by building interim supportive housing with rapid, cost-effective, scalable solutions. He also serves on the board of SACRED (Sexually Abused Children’s Relief Endeavor), a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing immediate temporary financial assistance to families in crisis due to child sexual abuse.
Smoke is also the Chair of Taliera, a company he founded in 2006 to incubate, celebrate, and advise iconic brands. He has led billions in M&A, deals, and financings. He has founded numerous companies and brands and navigated 50+ M&A transactions. He helped build National Wine & Spirits (merged into now #2 largest) into one of the US’s most innovative billion-dollar beer, wine, spirits, and beverage distributors. Smoke also served as Chair/Pres. of the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America (WSWA).
Smoke is an active leader in the YPO Young President Organization, and served as the Chair for YPO’s Pacific One chapter from 2022 to 2024. He served as Global Network Chair and champion of multiple international YPO events. In 2024 he was a keynote speaker for the YPO Global Leadership Conference as part of their Leaders Across Borders LAB spotlight in Miami and Istanbul. He also attended the YPO CEO Chicago Booth Seminar.
He served on the Board Member of the American Freedom Fund and served as Junior Achievement of Indiana’s Chairman and Chair of the Experiential Learning & Entrepreneurship Foundation. Smoke served for over a decade as a Vanderbilt University Business School Board Member and its President. He is the recipient of numerous awards and recognition, including the E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year and the Distinguished Alumnus Award from Vanderbilt. He has a longstanding and successful public speaking and media presence, regularly contributing to CNBC’s Fast Money, Closing Bell, Nightly Business Report, Fox Business’s Varney & Co., CNN, and numerous publications, radio, and podcasts.
Smoke holds an MBA from Vanderbilt and a BS in Agricultural Economics from Cornell, where he was a wrestler and Sigma Nu.
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