Confessions of a Headhunter series: The Extra Chair in the Room

Written by Raj Tulsiani

We were invited by a board secretary to pitch for a senior appointment. It was a crowded meeting, lots of stakeholders, lots of opinions, and one voice felt… dated. Prejudiced, even.

The Extra Chair in the Room

This was pre-George Floyd era, when the burden of proof for bias was higher, the language was softer, and people could hide behind titles. When I gently challenged the tone, he pulled rank: he told me he chaired (or led) the diversity committee at a major bank - therefore, he knew more about it than I did.

I left the pitch thinking: We haven’t won this. And even if we do, this could get messy.

Then the board secretary called: we’d been appointed.

I said, honestly, “I’m surprised - I didn’t think I’d connected with the chair.”

She replied, “He mentioned that. He didn’t think it was material.”

That was my cue. I said:

“Fine. But with your permission, we’d like to add one safeguard. We’ll pay for it. It won’t slow anything down. Let’s have an independent observer sit in the final panel - not to vote, simply to watch for irregularities and feedback any perceived bias to the panel.”

She agreed.

Fast forward to final interviews. Before a Black female candidate - who had a bit of public profile at the time - went in, the chair made the sort of “fit” and “aggressive” comments that are so often coded stereotypes about Black women at work. The problem was simple: nothing in the evidence supported it. Not in prior interviews, not in the notes, not in any assessment.

After the panel, the candidate was broadly agreed to be above the line. But the chair’s “aggressive” framing was hanging in the air, doing its quiet work.

That’s when the independent observer earned their seat.

They said, calmly:

“You’ve introduced an assertion that biases the process. There’s nothing in the evidence trail to support it. Can you point to what specifically made you conclude she was more aggressive than the other candidates?”

There was no answer - because there wasn’t any evidence.

The panel re-anchored on facts. The candidate was appointed.

And I’m convinced she very likely wouldn’t have been - not without that extra chair in the room.

The takeaway:

Inclusion isn’t a slogan; it’s process design.

If you want fair outcomes, you need mechanisms that catch bias in the moment - politely, evidentially, and without drama.

Moral: Don’t argue about values - protect the decision with evidence.

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