Neon Labs, the core developing partner contributing to the first Solana network extension Neon EVM, today announced the appointment of Ivan Bjelajac as the company’s new Chief Executive Officer. A serial entrepreneur, infrastructure visionary, and internationally recognized Web3 leader, Bjelajac takes the helm to steer Neon through its next chapter of enhancing the technical excellence of the team, lead research on Solana and commercial focus. He is taking over the role from Marina Guryeva.
Ivan started out as an engineer and later became a serial entrepreneur with deep expertise in business strategy, execution, fundraising, networking, investor relations, and go-to-market strategy; he was a part of bringing six different startups from 0 to a successful exit.
With over 20 years of leadership experience across web2, deep tech, and blockchain infrastructure, Ivan Bjelajac is no stranger to bold bets and complex systems, with his most recent role being scaling revenue as VP of Strategy at Tenderly and running Polygon Edge development in its early days. Tenderly currently supports over a 100 EVM networks with tooling and infrastructure, while Polygon Edge was used in over 300 public and private network deployments. Both of these experiences give Ivan an unique type of view over the EVM landscape, its pain points and needs.
“The Neon ecosystem is not just a link between Ethereum and Solana; it’s the missing execution layer for crypto’s next wave of builders,” said Ivan Bjelajac. “Together with Neon Foundation and other partners, we’re building a future where developers don’t have to choose between liquidity and performance. With Neon, you can get both. It is a rare think to get a chance to run a company with so much potential and I could never pass up such an opportunity. We have exciting ideas for the next steps for Neon and I can’t wait to tell you more about them soon.”
Leadership Transition and Strategic Vision
The leadership transition comes at a strategic inflection point. The Neon ecosystem, in which Neon Labs serves as a technology contributor, is poised to scale developer adoption, unlock Solana-native use cases for Ethereum assets, and position itself as a foundational piece of infrastructure for institutions entering the Solana ecosystem.
Marina Guryeva, co-founder and outgoing CEO of Neon Labs, expressed strong confidence in Bjelajac’s appointment:
“Ivan brings a rare combination of visionary leadership and operational excellence. He understands how to scale infrastructure with integrity and impact. I am excited to support him as he takes the company to a new level.”
Neon Labs' Development Priorities Under New Leadership
With Bjelajac at the helm, Neon Labs will focus its development on supporting the Neon ecosystem priorities, including:
- •Enhancing Solana’s Internet Capital Markets vision through network extensions
- •Exploring the adoption of ZK solutions to push Solana limits and unlock new use cases
- •Simplifying the developer onboarding journey both for EVM and Solana-native builders
- •Advancing public goods infrastructure through open standards and decentralization
- •Establishing Neon as the go-to Ethereum experience within the Solana ecosystem
About Neon Labs
Neon Labs acts as an independent software developing partner to Neon Foundation, supporting the Neon EVM open-source project - the first of its kind Network Extension on Solana designed to seamlessly integrate Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatibility into Solana’s high-performance ecosystem.
By operating natively within Solana’s base layer, Neon EVM provides Ethereum developers with a fast, high-throughput pathway to deploy their EVM dApps on Solana, without the need to rewrite their contracts in Rust.
Neon Labs operates independently from Neon Foundation and provides its R&D services to support the Neon EVM project.