Keith Raniere is an American entrepreneur and founder of NXIVM.[1] NXIVM has been described as a successful executive coaching program by its supporters[2] and as "cult" organization in news reports.
Raniere is the son of New York City adman and a mother who taught ballroom dancing; he grew up in the bedroom community of Suffern, New York after having spent his first five years in Brooklyn.[1][3] He arrived in the Albany area at around the age of 16, about the time his mother died, to attend the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1981, where Raniere triple-majored in math, physics, and biology with minors in psychology and philosophy, and earned a BS in Biology.[1][3][4]
Raniere attracted some media attention for his high IQ scores. In 1988, a test developed by New York philosopher Ron Hoeflin and printed in Omni magazine placed his IQ at between 188 and 194 (Hoeflin confirms the result).[1] At the age of 27, Raniere was accepted as a member of the Mega Society, a high-IQ society with a minimum requirement at the one-in-a-million level. Raniere gained recognition for answering correctly all but two questions on a 48-question, self- administered test, in which it is stated that Raniere "moved up to the rarified one-in-10-million level."[5]
In 1998, Raniere and associate Nancy Salzman founded NXIVM, a company offering "Executive Success Programs" and behavior-modification "technology" called "Rational Inquiry."