Software-defined networking is picking up considerable steam as open source technologies take hold in the enterprise, but fragmentation is proving to be a stumbling block for vendors seeking to catch up on the market. Not to be left in the dust, the network industry’s largest vendors have put their weight behind the Linux Foundation’s OpenDaylight Project, a community-led initiative that aims to create a set of common standards for SDN.

The project received a massive boost last week with the appointment of Nicolas “Neela” Jacques as its new executive director. The industry veteran will “provide guidance for all aspects” of OpenDaylight, including governance, product development, community relations and marketing. He will report directly to the project’s board of directors.

Before jumping into the SDN craze, Jacques served as the director of product marketing and senior cloud strategy at VMware. He played a central role in popularizing the company’s virtualization solutions, and helped shape its cloud computing and software-led data center strategies. He holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a Bachelor of Science from Georgetown University.

“Networking is key to getting a more efficient and automated data center. SDN represents that last mile for virtualization, and open source software and collaborative development is going to get us there,” Jacques said in a statement. “The OpenDaylight Project is driven by developers who are leading the way in innovation for the future of networking and delivering the promise of SDN and NFV [network functions virtualization]. I’m excited to join the project and contribute to this important, groundbreaking work.”

HP, one of the more prominent members of OpenDaylight, is pursuing a multipronged strategy to capitalize on SDN. Besides contributing to the open source community, the vendor is also trying to build an application ecosystem around its switches with a dedicated app store and SDK.