Solana Hires Former Binance CMO to Lead Strategy and Payments Push

The Solana Foundation has expanded its senior leadership team with two hires from major crypto firms as it works to increase institutional adoption and develop Solana into a broader payments network.

Rachel Conlan, who previously served as global chief marketing officer at Binance for three years, has joined the foundation as chief strategy officer. Her responsibilities will include institutional partnerships, ecosystem expansion and go-to-market initiatives.

Before joining Binance, Conlan held senior positions at OKX, sports agency CAA Sports and advertising company Havas.

The foundation has also appointed Jamal Raees as general manager of payments. Raees joins from Polygon Labs and previously worked at stablecoin infrastructure company Bridge and payments firm Wyre.

In his new role, Raees will focus on building relationships with payment providers and large enterprises while helping expand Solana's use for payment infrastructure.

The appointments come as activity involving stablecoins and tokenized assets continues to grow on Solana. The Solana Foundation said the network has processed more than $5 trillion in stablecoin transaction volume so far in 2026. Real-world assets on the blockchain have surpassed $4.5 billion, while tokenized equity supply has topped $620 million.

The foundation describes this broader shift as a "Token Supercycle," referring to the movement of money, assets and ownership onto blockchain-based infrastructure. It is also promoting the concept of "Internet Capital Markets," where assets can be issued, traded and settled directly online.

Solana developers first outlined a roadmap for this vision in July 2025, with the goal of developing the network into a venue for highly liquid onchain markets.

"The question is no longer whether markets move onchain," Solana Foundation President Lily Liu said, adding that the focus is now on "how fast, and onto whose infrastructure."

The leadership additions arrive as Solana continues making changes to its underlying network. Last week, the blockchain reduced its target slot time to 250 milliseconds, representing an almost 17% increase in block production frequency. The change is the third of four planned reductions.

A separate consensus upgrade is also being tested that is designed to reduce the time required for transactions to reach a point where they can no longer be reversed.

Conlan and Raees join Michael Coates, who became Solana's chief information security officer earlier this year after holding roles at Mozilla and Twitter.