Solana Foundation Hires Ex-Binance CMO and a Polygon Payments Lead for Two New Senior Roles

The Solana Foundation said on September 24 that it has appointed Rachel Conlan as chief strategy officer and Jamal Raees as general manager of payments. The disclosure came in the Foundation's own newsroom post; it is a personnel announcement, not third-party reporting.

Conlan joins from Binance, where the Foundation says she spent three years as global chief marketing officer, with earlier roles at OKX, CAA Sports and Havas. Her brief, per the Foundation, is strategy across institutional partnerships, ecosystem growth and go-to-market work. Raees arrives from Polygon Labs, having previously worked at stablecoin-infrastructure firm Bridge and at Wyre; he will focus on expanding Solana's payments reach with payment companies and enterprises.

The Foundation framed the hires around network activity figures it attributes to itself: more than $5 trillion in stablecoin volume processed on Solana in 2026 to date, real-world assets on the network above $4.5 billion, and tokenized equity supply past $620 million. None of those numbers is independently sourced in the announcement, and none is dated beyond "2026." The post also notes that Michael Coates, formerly of Mozilla and Twitter, joined as chief information security officer earlier this year.

Key facts

• Appointments: Rachel Conlan, chief strategy officer; Jamal Raees, GM of payments (Solana Foundation announcement, Sep 24, 2026).
• Backgrounds: Conlan — three years as Binance global CMO, prior roles at OKX, CAA Sports, Havas. Raees — from Polygon Labs, previously Bridge and Wyre (same source).
• Network figures (Foundation-stated, self-reported): >$5T stablecoin volume in 2026; >$4.5B real-world assets; >$620M tokenized equity supply.
• Other: Michael Coates named CISO earlier in 2026 (same source).

The real-world read

This is a corporate press release, and it reads like one. The substance — two senior hires and their prior employers — is straightforward and probably reliable. Everything around it is marketing. The "Token Supercycle" and "Internet Capital Markets" are the Foundation's own coinages, deployed by President Lily Liu to cast routine executive hiring as historic momentum.

Treat the headline numbers with care. The $5 trillion stablecoin figure, the $4.5 billion in RWAs and the $620 million in tokenized equity are all stated by the Foundation, unsourced and largely undated, and every one comes from a party with an interest in the total looking large. Stablecoin "volume" in particular is easily inflated by high-frequency and automated transfers and is not a measure of economic adoption. The announcement doesn't disclose Conlan's or Raees's compensation, start dates, or whether either role is newly created. Notably, it hires a marketing executive to run "strategy" — a tell about what the next phase is actually about.

Opinion, and whose

Lily Liu, Solana Foundation president: the ecosystem is "in the early innings of the Token Supercycle," and the open question is "how fast, and onto whose infrastructure" markets move onchain. Conlan said the opportunity is moving businesses "from interest to implementation." Raees said payments are shifting "from promise to production." All three are forecasts from an interested party, not established facts.

This is news coverage, not financial advice.

Sources

• Solana Foundation newsroom, "Solana Foundation Appoints Rachel Conlan…" (Sep 24, 2026) — primary and only source; provided the appointments, executive backgrounds and quotes, and the network statistics. This is the organization's own announcement and marketing; its promotional framing and self-reported figures are treated as such above.