The Solana Foundation has appointed former Binance executive Rachel Conlan as its chief strategy officer and Polygon Labs veteran Jamal Raees as general manager of payments, signaling a major push to accelerate institutional adoption and onchain assets on the Solana network, CoinDesk reported.
In her new role as chief strategy officer, Conlan will oversee global strategy, institutional partnerships, and ecosystem growth to onboard more enterprise clients. Conlan spent three years at Binance, serving as global chief marketing officer before her departure in June, and brings prior experience from leadership roles at OKX and CAA Sports. Conlan stated that her immediate objective is to demonstrate the network’s value proposition, establish institutional relationships, and support corporate transitions into active implementation.
Simultaneously, Jamal Raees joins the organization as general manager of payments. Moving from Polygon Labs, Raees also brings background experience from stablecoin infrastructure developer Bridge and payments firm Wyre. He will focus on integrating traditional payments infrastructure and encouraging global enterprises to leverage the Solana network for money movement and tokenized settlement.
These high-profile hires reflect a broader strategic shift by the Solana Foundation to position the blockchain beyond speculative trading into mainstream financial architecture. The move follows recent comments from Solana Foundation President Lily Liu regarding the “Token Supercycle,” a continuous migration of traditional money, real-world assets, and equities onto 24/7 blockchain rails.
The network has demonstrated growing momentum in real-world adoption, processing over $5 trillion in stablecoin volume year-to-date. Data shows that tokenized real-world assets on Solana have surpassed $4.5 billion, featuring more than $600 million in tokenized stock equity supply.
