Solana Foundation hires ex-Binance CMO and payments exec as new partnerships expand

Solana Foundation has appointed Rachel Conlan, formerly Binance's chief marketing officer, as chief strategy officer and hired Jamal Raees, an ex-Polygon Labs executive, as general manager of payments. The moves come as the foundation advances partnerships and infrastructure efforts, including the March launch of its Developer Platform and support from large firms such as Mastercard and Western Union.

By AI Newsroom· Reviewed by Pranav, Founder & Editor-in-ChiefPublished 2 minutes agoUpdated 1 minute ago0 views

Solana Foundation hires ex-Binance CMO and payments exec as new partnerships expand

Why It Matters

These hires signal Solana Foundation's push to strengthen institutional and payments-focused adoption of its network at a time of growing stablecoin and tokenized-asset activity on Solana. Leadership additions with payments and marketing backgrounds could accelerate integration with major payment firms and developer ecosystems already engaging the network.

Key Facts

Publication date: Sep 24, 2026
New chief strategy officer: Rachel Conlan (ex-Binance CMO)
New general manager of payments: Jamal Raees (former Polygon Labs executive)
Conlan's responsibilities: Institutional partnerships, ecosystem growth, bringing businesses onto Solana
Raees's focus: Engagement with payments companies; adoption of stablecoins and tokenized deposits

Solana Foundation announced two senior hires as it looks to expand institutional partnerships and payments infrastructure on its blockchain. Rachel Conlan, who spent three years at Binance and previously held roles at OKX, CAA Sports and Havas, joins as chief strategy officer. The foundation said Conlan will lead strategy across institutional partnerships, ecosystem growth and efforts to onboard businesses to Solana.

Jamal Raees, formerly with Polygon Labs, was named general manager of payments. Raees said he will deepen the foundation’s engagement with large payments firms and concentrate on the infrastructure used by teams building payment services on Solana. He specifically cited a focus on increasing adoption and usage of stablecoins and tokenized deposits, with an emphasis on global markets.

The hires follow the March rollout of the Solana Developer Platform, which named Modern Treasury as a payments infrastructure partner and listed Mastercard and Western Union as early users. Solana has also been included by Amazon Web Services among the networks supported by its x402 feature, which allows websites to charge AI agents in USDC for access to content.

On-chain metrics and upcoming technical upgrades provide additional context for the appointments. Solana reported processing more than $5 trillion in stablecoin volume during 2026, and it said the network holds over $4.5 billion in real-world assets alongside more than $620 million in tokenized equity. The foundation is preparing the Alpenglow upgrade, intended to cut transaction finality from roughly 12.8 seconds to about 150 milliseconds.