The Solana Foundation has appointed former Binance CMO Rachel Conlan as Chief Strategy Officer and former Polygon Labs executive Jamal Raïs as General Manager of Payments, the organization announced Thursday.

Conlan will oversee strategy for institutional partnerships, ecosystem development, and business growth on Solana. Raïs will focus on stablecoins and tokenized deposits, and will enhance the foundation’s engagement with major payments companies and infrastructure for teams building payment services on Solana.

Conlan to Lead Institutional Partnerships and Ecosystem Growth

According to the foundation, Conlan will be responsible for institutional strategy and scaling the ecosystem. She spent three years at Binance and previously held leadership roles at OKX, CAA Sports, and Havas.

Raïs to Focus on Stablecoins and Tokenized Deposits

Raïs will also work on expanding partnerships with payments companies and focus on infrastructure for developers of payment solutions on Solana. “My focus is to drive broader adoption and usage of stablecoins and tokenized deposits with an emphasis on global markets,” he said in a statement from the Solana Foundation.

New Partnerships and Payment Infrastructure

Alongside the appointments, the foundation announced a partnership with Modern Treasury, which will serve as a payment infrastructure partner for the newly launched Solana Developer Platform. Earlier this year, Solana made deals with Amazon Web Services to support stablecoin payments on the network and expanded existing collaborations with Mastercard and Western Union.

Alpenglow Upgrade Targets ~150 ms Finality

Solana is preparing to deploy the Alpenglow upgrade, aimed at reducing transaction finality from approximately 12.8 seconds to around 150 milliseconds. Higher finality speed remains the upgrade’s main target.

Network Metrics: Stablecoins and Real-World Assets

The network processed over $5 trillion in stablecoin volume in 2026. More than $4.5 billion in real-world assets and over $620 million in tokenized equities are also hosted on Solana.