Solana Foundation Names Rachel Conlan CSO, Jamal Raees Payments GM

These hires signal that Solana's institutional and payments push is being staffed with people drawn from exchanges and rival Layer 2s, rather than grown internally — a common pattern when a network shifts from technical milestones to business development. The payments-focused GM role is the more telling appointment, since payments is where institutional adoption and real transaction flow tend to converge. Whether the foundation can convert this experience into actual institutional and payment activity on the network, rather than just senior titles, is the open question.