Solana Foundation names former Binance executive Rachel Conlan as chief strategy officer

The Solana Foundation has announced two senior hires as it pushes deeper into institutional adoption and payments. Former Binance Global Chief Marketing Officer Rachel Conlan has been appointed chief strategy officer, while former Polygon Labs executive Jamal Raees will join as general manager of payments. According to the foundation, the appointments are meant to speed up institutional use of the Solana network and expand payment-related activity on the chain. Conlan will oversee institutional partnerships, ecosystem growth, and go-to-market strategy. Raees, meanwhile, will focus on payments, including stablecoins, tokenized deposits, and the infrastructure required to position Solana as a financial settlement network. Alongside the appointments, the foundation disclosed several network metrics for 2026. It said Solana has processed more than $5 trillion in stablecoin transaction volume, with over $4.5 billion in on-chain real-world assets and more than $620 million in tokenized equity supply. The update was published by Techub and attributed to NewsBTC.