LAKE TAHOE, California — The executive director of the OpenDaylight (ODL) Project, Neela Jacques, is leaving to join Bain Capital Ventures as an Entrepreneur in Residence, SDxCentral learned today at a Linux Leadership conference.

He’ll be working with Bain Managing Director Enrique Salem, who previously was CEO of Symantec.

Jacques says his gig at Bain Capital Ventures is a short-term position. “It’s a chance for me to explore my next big thing,” he says. “I did a bunch of things like that at VMware. I’ve been feeling — now that ODL is more mature — the pull of what’s the next big thing.”

He has four or five ideas for potential startups. One idea, for example, is something to do with blockchain technology. A blockchain is a distributed database that is resistant to modification of the data.

“Enterprises could benefit from blockchain to share data in a central way but that is not controlled by one entity,” says Jacques. “I believe every enterprise is going to look at this. I think blockchain is going to be very pervasive.”

While Jacques is exploring new entrepreneurial opportunities for himself, Bain Capital Ventures will consider the investment potential of these ideas.

Jacques has been the executive director of ODL since November 2013, where he has overseen the growth and success of the open source software-defined networking (SDN) project. Phil Robb, who currently serves as senior director of networking solutions at the Linux Foundation, will serve as interim executive director of ODL.

Apparently, the Linux Foundation is already writing a press release about the next executive director, which it plans to issue in a couple of weeks.

Asked what he considers his greatest accomplishment at ODL, Jacques says, “Building the community and getting all these people from companies that are bitter enemies to work together.”

More than 900 people have contributed to ODL over the four years of its existence.