Solana Hires Binance and Polygon Veterans to Push Payments Into the Big Leagues

By Isaac • September 24, 2026 3:09 pm •

Solana is no longer acting like raw speed is enough to win the next round of crypto adoption.

The Solana Foundation has hired former Binance global marketing chief Rachel Conlan as chief strategy officer and Polygon Labs veteran Jamal Raees as general manager of payments. The pairing is a clear signal: Solana wants to turn its technical capacity and growing stablecoin footprint into business that major institutions actually use.

CoinDesk reports that Conlan will lead institutional partnerships, ecosystem growth and the effort to bring more companies onto the network. She spent three years at Binance and previously held senior roles at OKX, CAA Sports and Havas.

Raees is taking the other half of the assignment: payments.