Solana Foundation hires ex-Binance CMO and payments exec as new partnerships expand

Rachel Conlan will oversee institutional partnerships and ecosystem growth, while Jamal Raees will focus on stablecoins and tokenized deposits, following a wave of new partnerships.

Solana Foundation has appointed former Binance chief marketing officer Rachel Conlan as chief strategy officer and former Polygon Labs executive Jamal Raees as general manager of payments, coming on following a flurry of new partnership announcements.

Conlan will lead strategy across institutional partnerships, ecosystem growth and efforts to bring businesses onto Solana, the foundation said Thursday. She spent three years at Binance and previously held senior roles at OKX, CAA Sports and Havas.

Raees said he would also deepen the foundation’s engagement with major payments companies and focus on infrastructure used by teams building payment services on Solana.

“My focus will be on driving greater adoption and usage of stablecoins and tokenized deposits, with an emphasis on global markets,” he said in a statement provided by Solana Foundation.

The management changes come as Solana takes on a flurry of new partnerships, including a collaboration with Modern Treasury that will see the San Francisco-based fintech become a payments infrastructure partner in the Foundation’s newly launched Solana Developer Platform.