Solana Foundation hires Binance, Polygon veterans for tokenized finance push

The Solana Foundation appointed former Binance executive Rachel Conlan as chief strategy officer. The foundation appointed Jamal Raees as general manager for payments. Conlan will lead strategy across institutional partnerships, ecosystem growth and efforts to bring more companies onto Solana. Conlan previously spent three years at Binance. She most recently served as global chief marketing officer before leaving the exchange in June. Raees joins from Polygon Labs, the development organization behind the Polygon network. He previously worked at stablecoin infrastructure firm Bridge, which is now part of Stripe. He also previously worked at crypto payments firm Wyre. Raees will focus on getting payments companies and other businesses to use Solana for moving money. The appointments come as Solana courts traditional financial firms and promotes its network as infrastructure beyond crypto trading. Stablecoin payments, tokenized funds and equities have become a larger part of that effort. Solana Foundation President Lily Liu's Token Supercycle thesis says money, assets and ownership will increasingly migrate to always-on internet infrastructure.