interviewer and facilitator
Meri Fatin: facilitator, interviewer, podcaster

A former news and current affairs radio producer at ABC Perth,  I was a latecomer to media, starting in community radio in my early 30’s. My clients have included Fane Productions, Perth Festival, WA Museum Boola Bardip, Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre, Women in Mining WA, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts and the Disrupted Festival of Ideas.

My focus changed to climate and environment from March 2020 when I was able to host Christiana Figueres, chief architect of the Paris Climate Agreement in Perth.  Since then I’ve predominantly worked on events that promote understanding of the climate action landscape, risk, opportunity and responsibility in Western Australia, using Figueres’ lessons in inclusive leadership and stubborn optimism to inform my approach.

After curating the audience and speakers for TedXPerth’s WA Climate Leadership Summit in 2020, I started WA Climate Leaders Inc, a cross sectoral network intent on inspiring bold leadership in Western Australian business and industry to accelerate emissions reduction and climate action.

A treasured acknowledgement of how I work as an interviewer came from reclusive poet John Kinsella in 2015.  After I thanked him for a lengthy interview, he responded “I tell you what, I’m surprised I did it.  I wasn’t going to, but …I looked at some of the other stuff you’d been doing and I thought that this is a way of telling a life where I’m not going to be judged.  At least not during the conversation…I feel that I’ve been given a go to speak my mind under my own conditions. So thank you for that.”

My Rare Air podcast features one-on-one long form interviews revealing remarkable stories of self mastery, strong principles and transcendence of great challenges. The podcast and my live interviewing work has given me the chance to talk to some incredible people including author Margaret Atwood, journalists Leigh Sales and Stan Grant, and robotic limb expert Professor Munjed al Muderis. More recent editions of the podcast have been with IPCC scientists.  In 2016, I was senior producer for the Perth International Arts Festival’s collaboration with London’s Empathy Museum, called A Mile in My Shoes.