Solana Foundation Hires Binance's Former Global CMO for Institutional Push
Solana Foundation hired Binance’s former global CMO Rachel Conlan as chief strategy officer and Polygon Labs executive Jamal Raees to lead payments, expanding its senior team around institutional adoption and payments. Conlan will focus on institutional partnerships, ecosystem growth, and go-to-market strategy. Raees will work with payment companies and enterprises to position Solana as payments infrastructure. The hires come as Solana reports strong network activity, including more than $5 trillion in stablecoin volume in 2026, over $4.5 billion in real-world assets, and more than $620 million in tokenized equities. The Foundation is framing this push as part of a “Token Supercycle” and “Internet Capital Markets,” where assets are issued, traded, and settled onchain. The network is also undergoing technical upgrades, including a recent reduction in target slot time to 250 milliseconds and a consensus overhaul aimed at making payments irreversible faster.
