By Blockchain News | Created at 2026-09-25 06:40:58 | Updated at 2026-09-25 11:26:44
17 hours ago
Peter Zhang Sep 24, 2026 17:45
Solana (SOL) Foundation appoints Rachel Conlan as Chief Strategy Officer and Jamal Raees as GM of Payments to drive institutional adoption and payments growth.
The Solana (SOL) Foundation has appointed two high-profile executives, Rachel Conlan and Jamal Raees, to bolster its institutional and payments strategy as on-chain financial activity surges. Conlan, a former Binance executive, will serve as Chief Strategy Officer, while Raees, previously with Polygon Labs, takes the role of General Manager of Payments. The appointments reflect Solana’s aggressive push to solidify its role in global finance.
Solana’s growth trajectory has been significant in 2026, processing over $5 trillion in stablecoin volume and surpassing $4.5 billion in tokenized real-world assets. The network also reported $620 million in tokenized equity supply, signaling a shift from experimentation to production. These figures underscore Solana’s emerging status as a go-to platform for always-on, internet-native financial infrastructure.
Key Hires to Drive Institutional Adoption
Rachel Conlan comes to Solana with extensive crypto and marketing experience. During her three-year tenure as Binance’s Global Chief Marketing Officer, she helped grow the exchange’s user base from 150 million to over 317 million. Known for spearheading major marketing campaigns featuring The Weeknd, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Alpine F1, Conlan also played a pivotal role in Binance’s regional and global partnerships. Her mandate at Solana centers on scaling institutional partnerships and driving ecosystem adoption.
"What brought me to Solana was the ambition of the builders and how much it is already being put to use. The opportunity now is to bring that to a much wider audience," Conlan said.
Jamal Raees, meanwhile, aims to expand Solana’s reach as a payments infrastructure provider. His background includes roles at Polygon Labs and Wyre, where he worked on enterprise blockchain solutions. At Solana, Raees will focus on collaborating with payment companies and enterprises to integrate Solana’s infrastructure for global-scale payments.
"Payments are one of the clearest areas where blockchain infrastructure is moving from promise to production. Solana has the performance, reliability, and developer ecosystem to support payments at global scale," Raees stated.
Strategic Timing Amid the "Token Supercycle"
The appointments come as Solana positions itself as a leader in what it calls the "Token Supercycle"—a long-term shift of money, assets, and ownership onto internet-native platforms. Solana Foundation President Lily Liu highlighted this vision, noting that the ecosystem is moving toward markets that are "faster, more accessible, and always on." Liu praised the hires as critical to accelerating this transition, citing their experience in scaling enterprise adoption and payment solutions.
Solana’s market performance has also shown resilience. As of September 24, 2026, SOL traded at $116.81, up 2.32% in the past 24 hours. While broader market cap data wasn’t available, the network’s transaction volume suggests increasing real-world utility, a key metric for long-term investors.
What’s Next for Solana
The addition of Conlan and Raees follows other notable hires, including Michael Coates, former Chief Information Security Officer at Mozilla and Twitter, who joined Solana earlier this year. With these appointments, the foundation is signaling its intent to attract top-tier talent to support its evolving role in global finance.
The coming months will likely focus on deepening institutional partnerships and expanding Solana’s payments ecosystem. For traders, the continued growth of on-chain financial activity could bolster SOL’s value proposition, especially as the network transitions from crypto use cases to broader financial infrastructure.
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