The Solana Foundation is strengthening its senior leadership with two high-profile hires aimed at accelerating institutional adoption and payments. Rachel Conlan, former global chief marketing officer at Binance, joins as chief strategy officer, while Jamal Raees, previously at Polygon Labs, becomes general manager of payments.
Conlan's remit covers institutional partnerships, ecosystem growth and go-to-market strategy. She spent three years at Binance and earlier held roles at OKX, CAA Sports and Havas. Raees will focus on payment companies and enterprises, drawing on experience from stablecoin infrastructure firm Bridge and payments company Wyre.
Solana Foundation President Lily Liu framed the appointments around the network's "Token Supercycle." She said, "The question is no longer whether markets move onchain, it's how fast, and onto whose infrastructure."
The Foundation highlighted network momentum: more than $5 trillion in stablecoin volume processed in 2026, real-world assets above $4.5 billion, and tokenized equity supply exceeding $620 million. The hires also follow technical changes, including a reduction in Solana's target slot time to 250 milliseconds last week and a planned consensus overhaul.
Earlier this year, the Solana Foundation partnered with SBI Holdings to build a Japan-based onchain financial market and introduced a pay-as-you-go system for AI agents with Google Cloud.
