If we are going to keep them separate, then all we need to say in the lead is "...of NXIVM.", period, and then put the onus on that article to say what it is, although it could be restated below.  Then, if there is going to be an apositive after a comma that says what it is, then it should be a fair summary of that article.  At the moment, I'm not so sure that whether that's true.  
Also, as you know, we're not really supposed to cite leads, they are summaries of the article that follows.  Ergo, we can say that some people found it very "succesful" (if that's the word they used) if that's cited in the text below, which we can do (It's a bit cherry-picking, I think, please have a look at the sources on this discussion page, to bring that out of the main points of the sources, but nevertheless I'll work it back in because you're right, we have to be as neutral as we can.  What I was trying to do, my main purpose for the edit, was about what the nature and scope of this article and that one was going to be: If we keep them separate, we can link in place of explaining, but I really think we should consider merging because otherwise it should be written diffently.