John Raeder: resilient CEO steers IQNavigator toward IPO.

• Author: Bronikowski, Lynn
• Position: Executive Edge

John Raeder will never forget the images of ash-covered people rushing from the scene of the Twin Towers disaster on Sept. 11, 2001.

"It was horrible to see the complete scattering of people," recalls Raeder, the president and chief executive officer of Denver-based IQNavigator Inc.

The scene was a vast contrast to Sept. 10, 2001, when Raeder and his team met with fierce investment bankers in Manhattan--including some already stung by the burst of the Internet bubble--to try to secure financing for his software company, founded in 1999. Raeder was hammered with difficult questions but emerged from the meeting with $20 million in financing from Baker Capital.

"It meant our survival to get that financing," said Raeder, who employed 60 at the time. "And then it was like a nuclear winter hit and it would affect our business over the next three years."

His situation became even more chilling when Raeder realized that had he not cancelled an appointment at Morgan Stanley when a breakfast meeting with DeLoitte Touche came open, he would have been in the heart of the South Tower when the second plane hit.

Stunned, he and his colleagues holed up in their hotel rooms where they viewed the inferno and worried about getting home.

"I realized that my family and America was under siege," he said. "It wasn't until Sept. 14 that we were able to drive home, and then for the next 30 days we did everything we could to save our business."

In the wake of 9/11, Baker Capital almost immediately cancelled financing packages for two companies. IQNavigator was one of them.

"I came back stronger than ever that next week," said Raeder. He and his team traveled four to five days a week to sign new customers and demonstrated to Baker Capital and other investors that the procurement and optimization solutions...