The Solana Foundation has appointed Rachel Conlan as its new chief strategy officer. Conlan previously served as the global chief marketing officer at Binance for three years and held positions at OKX, CAA Sports, and Havas. Her new role focuses on institutional partnerships, ecosystem expansion, and go-to-market strategies.
Jamal Raees joins the organization as general manager of payments, moving from Polygon Labs. His background includes roles at Bridge and Wyre. Raees will lead efforts to integrate Solana as a payments infrastructure by collaborating with enterprises and payment firms. These hires follow the appointment of Michael Coates as chief information security officer.
The foundation reports that Solana has processed over $5 trillion in stablecoin volume in 2026. Real-world assets on the network have exceeded $4.5 billion, while the supply of tokenized equity has surpassed $620 million. These figures align with the organization's focus on Internet Capital Markets and the migration of assets on-chain.
Technically, the network recently reduced its target slot time to 250 milliseconds, marking a 17% increase in block production speed. This change represents the third of four planned reductions. Additionally, the foundation is testing a consensus overhaul designed to finalize payments more rapidly, further supporting its institutional adoption goals.
