The Solana Foundation said Thursday that it has appointed Rachel Conlan, most recently global chief marketing officer at Binance, as chief strategy officer, and Jamal Raees, previously an executive at Polygon Labs, as general manager of payments. Conlan will lead strategy across institutional partnerships, ecosystem growth and efforts to bring more companies onto Solana, while Raees will work with payments companies and enterprises on expanding the network's use as payments infrastructure, the foundation said. The appointments were reported by CoinDesk, Cointelegraph and Decrypt.
Solana Foundation names Rachel Conlan chief strategy officer and Jamal Raees payments head
The Solana Foundation said Thursday that it has appointed Rachel Conlan, most recently global chief marketing officer at Binance, as chief strategy officer, and Jamal Raees, previously an executive at Polygon Labs, as general manager of payments. Conlan will lead strategy across institutional partnerships, ecosystem growth and efforts to bring more companies onto Solana, while Raees will work with payments companies and enterprises on expanding the network's use as payments infrastructure, the foundation said. The appointments were reported by CoinDesk, Cointelegraph and Decrypt.
Conlan spent three years at Binance, according to the three outlets, most recently as global chief marketing officer before leaving the exchange in June, CoinDesk reported. Cointelegraph and Decrypt reported that she previously held senior roles at OKX, the sports agency CAA Sports and the advertising group Havas.
Raees joins from Polygon Labs, the development organization behind the Polygon network, and previously worked at the stablecoin infrastructure firm Bridge and the payments company Wyre, according to the sources. CoinDesk noted that Bridge is now part of Stripe. He will focus on getting payments companies and other businesses to use Solana for moving money.
The hires come as Solana courts traditional financial firms, positioning its network as infrastructure for uses beyond crypto trading, including stablecoin payments, tokenized funds and equities. CoinDesk reported that Solana Foundation President Lily Liu laid out what she called the "Token Supercycle" earlier in the month, describing it as a long-term migration of money, assets and ownership onto continuously operating blockchain infrastructure. Decrypt reported that the foundation also frames this shift as the basis for what it calls Internet Capital Markets, in which assets are issued, traded and settled natively online, and that Solana developers set out a roadmap under the Token Supercycle banner in July 2025.
On network activity, the sources reported that Solana has processed more than $5 trillion in stablecoin volume during 2026 and that real-world assets on the network exceed $4.5 billion. CoinDesk attributed the stablecoin figure to Allium data and the tokenized asset figure to RWA.xyz, while Decrypt attributed the figures to the Foundation.
Cointelegraph reported that the appointments follow the March launch of the Solana Developer Platform, which includes Modern Treasury as a payments infrastructure partner, with Mastercard and Western Union named as early users. It also reported that Amazon Web Services included Solana among networks supported by its x402 feature, which lets website owners charge AI agents in USDC for content access.
On technical changes, Cointelegraph reported that Solana is preparing to deploy Alpenglow, a planned network upgrade intended to reduce transaction finality from about 12.8 seconds to roughly 150 milliseconds. Decrypt reported that the network cut its target slot time to 250 milliseconds the previous week, described as nearly a 17% speedup and the third of four planned reductions, with a separate consensus overhaul in testing aimed at shortening the point at which a payment can no longer be reversed.
Decrypt also reported that Conlan and Raees follow Michael Coates, who joined the foundation as chief information security officer earlier in the year from Mozilla and Twitter.
Where sources differ
- CoinDesk reported tokenized equity on Solana at more than $600 million, citing data by Blockworks, while Cointelegraph and Decrypt reported tokenized equity supply of more than $620 million.
- CoinDesk attributed the $5 trillion stablecoin volume figure to Allium data, while Decrypt attributed the figure to the Solana Foundation and Cointelegraph cited it without an attribution.
- The sources differ on the origin and timing of the "Token Supercycle" framing: CoinDesk said Foundation President Lily Liu laid it out earlier in the month, while Decrypt said Solana developers set out a roadmap under that banner in July 2025.
- Start dates for Conlan and Raees, and whether the roles are newly created or replacements, are not established.
- No source reports terms of the appointments, compensation, or whether the foundation conducted a search process.
- Binance and Polygon Labs, the executives' former employers, did not comment on the departures in any of the supplied sources.
- CoinDesk reported that Conlan left Binance in June but no source states the circumstances of that departure.
- The exact figure for tokenized equity supply on Solana is not reconciled across sources ($600 million-plus versus $620 million-plus), and the measurement dates are unclear.
- No independent verification is provided for the network metrics beyond the data providers and the Foundation cited.
- The scope, timeline and expected completion date of the Alpenglow upgrade and of the remaining planned block-time reductions are not established.
- No source indicates who, if anyone, previously held the chief strategy officer or payments general manager roles at the foundation.
- CoinDesk — original — by Krisztian Sandor
- Cointelegraph — by Cointelegraph by Yohan Yun
- Decrypt — by Decrypt Agent