But she does anyway, because she knows the tiny domestic event was an instructive moment in her life - a life spent fighting for women's issues and children's rights, campaigning against cigarettes, and now representing people with autism spectrum disorder.

For Sharkie, the new chief executive of Amaze (formerly Autism Victoria), this all-important equality parable begins with her dad leaving his underwear on the bathroom floor, and ends with the minor confrontation that followed.

''I remember saying, 'What is it that you think happens to that?' He said, 'It gets taken to the laundry.' And I asked him who he thinks takes it to the laundry? I think he told me, 'Don't be so impudent.' It really was a social justice motivator.''

Sharkie, 53, is also quick to point out that her dad - who is no longer present to defend himself - was a generous and caring man, one who paid for Legacy orphans to go on school camps they would otherwise have missed, and who donated to charities.

Still, the story of the dirty undies was seared into the memory of the then 14-year-old Sharkie, and that green-eyed, blonde-haired elegant operator has not stopped bristling at perceived and unspoken injustices - and unheard voices - ever since.

In her latest role at Amaze, she says, that battle begins with increasing the level of understanding of autism spectrum disorder - something many people in the ASD community still feel is lacking, or at least laboured with misconceptions.

''When a person doesn't look any different, there is no realisation of the difficulties they face,'' Sharkie says. ''ASD isn't like other conditions which can be explained in a couple of sentences. It requires a good 15-minute briefing to even give a very basic idea of what it is.''

Formulating a response to funding issues is crucial. Much has been done already to help pay for therapy from birth through to age six. More than 10,000 Victorian children have benefited from better access to clinicians since 2008, but it's not enough.

''The cost of therapies can be many times what the funding provides, and the funding stops when the child turns seven - ASD doesn't stop, and the costs go on,'' Sharkie says. ''I have heard the funding available likened to a Band-Aid for a broken arm.''

Sharkie is determined for that to change, and her track record of success lobbying and manoeuvring on behalf of various causes suggests she will. Of course, she did take the somewhat scenic route to becoming a social responsibility campaigner.

Born in Adelaide, her family moved to inner Melbourne when she was two. Sharkie went to Kew Primary School and Kew High School before being dropped in the middle of rural Victoria in her early teens.

Her mum and dad both wanted to live in the country. Working for what later came to be known as VicRoads, they jumped at the chance to take up postings in Benalla. During her three years there, Sharkie made friends - including her first boyfriend - but she didn't enjoy the place.

She knew the tree-change move would be temporary - for her at least - and as soon as high school finished, she headed back to inner Melbourne to study a bachelor of business, majoring in marketing, at RMIT.

Today Sharkie is augmenting that commercial degree with a graduate certificate in social impact at Swinburne University of Technology but, in truth, she has always seen marketing as a fine fit for philanthropy and corporate responsibility.

''Even now marketing is still not well understood,'' she says. ''There's the argument that it creates a demand for products that people don't need, but when it's done properly, you're responding directly to real needs.''

From 1986 to 1996, she straddled that line, performing a series of marketing and management roles in the health, beauty and publishing industries, which at first blush does not at all sound like the do-good resume of a crusader.

Indeed, from 1996 to 2003, she was still busy at work in private industry, including a ''zero to hero'' start-up called The Heat Group, which had distribution rights to global brands including Max Factor and CoverGirl. Within three years, it was turning over $50 million.

Yet much of her work during that time was also in social responsibility, such as the ''Self Made Girl'' program, which reached thousands of female teenagers with information about financial independence and economic empowerment.

The new millennium saw Sharkie's focus shift further from creating goods for consumers to applying commercial skills in the not-for-profit sector - as if she were consciously and gradually offsetting her experience in glamour with a bit of grit.

In 2001, she joined the boards of Plan International - a development organisation concerned with the rights of children - and the International Women's Development Agency, focusing on human rights and gender equality. She is president of the latter.

She has just returned from Cambodia, where they have programs for garment workers fighting for better wages. (In her spare time she fights to change the fact that 70 per cent of women in the Solomon Islands don't have a bank account).

''I really enjoyed that yin and yang - that I had this fashion retail business and I also had this broad social cause,'' she says. ''But over time I was drawn more to doing good and in the end I thought, I don't want to do this other work any more.''

One of Sharkie's biggest champions - and also a formal mentor - is entrepreneur and public intellectual Wendy McCarthy, who remembers recruiting a ''feisty, but also considered'' young Sharkie onto the board of Plan International.

''What I saw was a person who was instinctively smart, and now I see someone who thinks strategically,'' McCarthy says. ''Fiona needed a new pallet to work on at the time, and she's a high-integrity person. She makes a commitment and that's it.''

Her most striking commitment (and sharpest left turn) came in 2003, when she was appointed director of the Office of Women's Policy in the state government - a four-year role tackling family violence and sexual assault, among other issues.

Sharkie already knew every women's organisation in the country and every girls' school in the country, and the role allowed her to learn the machinery of government and do some more good.

From there she headed to Quit Victoria as executive director in 2007, where she presided over a period of blazing success for the organisation, leading bans on point-of-sale displays and smoking in cars with children, and the introduction of world-first plain packaging laws.

''I think the thing we had on our side is that nobody in society likes big tobacco,'' Sharkie says, deflecting praise. ''With the deceit and the lies, they're pretty despised as an industry - and quite rightly - so we had very strong bipartisan support.''

With the fight for tobacco control coming to an end, it was time for something new. Sharkie has been in the top job at Amaze for a little more than a month, meaning she is still in the ''look, listen and learn'' phase. She's having a lot of coffees.

She attended the organisation's standard staff training and induction program to learn about what she can give to this sector. Beyond that, she is talking to board members, doctors and families, and reading research papers at home.

Home is a converted Baptist church in Carlton North shared with two ''total geeks'' - her physics-obsessed 18-year-old son, and her CSIRO mathematician husband, who also volunteers as a mentor to refugees through the Brotherhood of St Laurence.

Work, meanwhile, is consulting with government, funders, partners, consumers and the 30 or so staff at Amaze. Sharkie seemingly meets someone new every day who knows someone ''on the spectrum'', although that could be a confirmation bias.

''When you buy a red car, you do see red cars everywhere, but I think it's much more than that,'' she says. ''My role is about being a champion for these people and having their voices heard, making sure they get everything they are entitled to in society.''

Among other findings from her short time on the job, Sharkie was staggered to learn that the employment rate for the ASD community (34 per cent) was much less than that for the disabled community (54 per cent).

And yet she has also been exposed to the unique offerings of people with ASD, many of whom have been able to fulfil their potential, such as best-selling American author Temple Grandin, and, closer to home, autism rights campaigner Donna Williams.

In part, Sharkie sees it as her role to remove any and all of the unnecessary barriers and hindrances faced by pioneers such as these in their quest to participate equally in all areas of society.

''People with ASD have a lot to offer the world because of the way their brains work, and their different ways of looking at how things work,'' she said. ''However, each of these people struggled before they fulfilled their potential.''

Former colleagues say Sharkie has a distinct organisational process of initially asking, ''What does success look like? How are we going to get there?'' Crystallising the ultimate goal is crucial, and it is being done at Amaze right now.

Mainstream support is one obvious target, and Sharkie observes that both comprehension and empathy have increased. There are now ''sensory friendly'' movies, the ''Sensitive Santa'' program at Christmas, and recently a ''quiet room'' at Northland Shopping Centre.

''The ASD community has overwhelmingly welcomed these initiatives,'' she said. ''It's not just a practical way of helping, but moral support and a feeling that individuals with ASD are acknowledged - and that awareness of their specific needs is growing.''

Of course starting in a new job tends to require long and demanding hours, but Sharkie will not send emails to staff at 9pm because she finds the culture of long hours ''offensive'' and, as a leader, ''you've gotta walk the talk''.

''I'll make a sweeping statement that the world would be a better place if we all worked part-time,'' she says. ''We would have more time to devote to volunteering, to being healthier, and being connected to all sorts of things.''

Outside work, Sharkie doesn't have many hobbies or pastimes. She likes sleeping, cooking, and in recent years - ''after being the girl in PE class who avoided anything to do with balls or teams'' - she has embraced fitness, mainly through running.

Dr Gini Skinner is a close friend from Kew High School who was in the same alphabetically assigned form due to their surnames. She joins Sharkie for Pilates every week and remembers that her friend was never afraid of a challenge.

''I would describe her as always being a leader and we were the followers. She was pretty outspoken in class and always stuck up for the underdog. She wasn't the tallest person on earth, but she was prepared to stand up for people.''

For her part, Sharkie has never regretted leaving the private sector to stand up for people instead of profits. In a way, she's the classic example of a citizen who left a reasonably safe corporate world to explore what it means to be part of a wider civic community.

It wasn't always that way, of course. She struggled at times with confidence and self-doubt. She asked the eternal questions: Am I good enough? Am I up to this? And she emerged as a smooth operator, a rounded collaborator, and a principled leader.

''I don't think one person has the answer to everything, but I do believe one person should make the decision. That's my style,'' says Sharkie. ''We shouldn't just do good, we should do great. I think that's really important - that we all do great in the world.''

Konrad Marshall is a senior writer at The Age.