In fact, when the Dunedin businesswoman found she was seated next to Xero managing director Craig Hudson, she thought a mistake had been made.
"I apologised to him being stuck next to me," she recalled.
Mrs Ramsay and fellow Otago-ite Alex Burke, the chief executive of education technology business Education Perfect, were among the 32 business leaders chosen for the trade mission to Melbourne and Sydney.
Led by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, it was part of the Government’s reconnection strategy to support export growth and the return of tourists post-Covid-19, and the pair said the delegation members were "openly embraced" by their Australian counterparts and encouraged to do business with them.
The business leaders ranged from some of the country’s largest exporters to small innovative companies relatively early in their export journey.
For Mr Burke, it was "quite the experience" and he was proud to have been involved.
"Dunedin doesn’t get a huge profile globally. We’re a couple of great businesses doing some really amazing things ... it was great to be part of it, he said.
"It’s really nice to be propelled into that sort of environment."
The connections made "on so many levels" were also nice, being able to "go meet the world again" and talk to other business leaders in similar situations, he said.
Mrs Ramsay said some chief executives or businesses had talked of feeling isolated and it was motivating to "get out and see there is a world of opportunity out there".
Travelling to Australia was particularly relevant for the pair; for Education Perfect, the country was its biggest market, providing almost 80%-85% of revenue.
United Machinists had been looking at the Australian market for a while and part of Mrs Ramsay’s objective was to establish where the business was best placed to focus its efforts there, given it was such an enormous market compared with New Zealand.
The days were packed on the trade mission; the delegation went from piling on to the bus at 7am, to being bused from location to location and finishing with dinners every night.
What quickly became apparent was that Ms Ardern "runs at 200 kilometres an hour", Mr Burke said.
"Her stamina was incredible," Mrs Ramsay added.
Also apparent was the strength of New Zealand’s brand and the "real opportunity" that existed for the country at the moment.
It was very trusted, from the leader down, and both Dunedin-based businesses and New Zealand businesses in general should make the most of leveraging that brand, Mr Burke said.
Ms Ardern’s brand was very powerful — "internationally, she is a bit of a rock star" — and people were clambering to get their photograph taken with her for the duration of the trip.
In particular, Mrs Ramsay believed fashion and food brands needed to leverage that.
While there, Ms Ardern launched the New Zealand "Discover New" collaboration with David Jones, which was overwhelmingly received.
Mrs Ramsay said Australia’s relationship with China had received a lot of media coverage.
With those heightened tensions, Australia was looking to close allies like New Zealand, and New Zealand’s reputation and interest in doing work with it had "skyrocketed".
Something that was particularly special for Mrs Ramsay was the ability to promote not only her family’s business but the industry.
While CNC machining was not particularly sexy, she acknowledged, she was the only engineering manufacturer representative on the trip and it was great to see so much fascination for what the business was doing.
It was great to be advocating both for the industry and as an ambassador for New Zealand advanced manufacturing.
Mr Burke said education technology did not get much promotion in terms of how it could be used.
He met many people in the Australian education sector who spoke of many of the same issues as in New Zealand.
"It was a great opportunity to say, ‘we’ve got some tech that doesn’t solve everything [but] it can solve issues in the classroom’. Just having that conversation and using this sort of forum to create more of a voice for us."
Asked whether there had been tangible positive outcomes for their respective businesses from the trip, both agreed there had been.
Education Perfect recently launched a senior product in Australia and having the time to explain the value proposition — that it could save teachers’ time, save schools’ money and help with learning outcomes — was valuable, Mr Burke said.
One of the meetings was about a new technology hub in Sydney; Education Perfect, which moved in this week, was one of the first tenants.
Staff in Australia totalled about 80 and its products were used in about 2500 classrooms, so there were many opportunities for the business to make an impact there, he said.
The energy on the trip was "just inspirational", and the next steps were about accelerating the business’ plans and making sure representatives were flying to Australia regularly to make the most of opportunities and continue to grow its place in the market.
United Machinists was particularly interested in pursuing the medical technology industry, as well as aerospace which was largely being driven by Australia’s defence industry.
There were the same issues as in New Zealand; productivity was a massive focus across all industries and there were massive shortages of skilled labour.
Industries would be pursuing advanced manufacturing opportunities to address that, Mrs Ramsay said.
The business was talking to several partners in Australia, and while there was "nothing across the line yet", there was a lot more heat in some of those negotiations as a result of the publicity from the trip.
There were huge opportunities in Australia for United Machinists.
Ultimately there would be some expansion in Dunedin as a result of that, and it was "quite likely" a base would also be established in Australia.
The trade trip had given her the confidence to develop the plan on how to establish that Australian market.
When it came to the Australia-New Zealand relationship, it seemed New Zealand was respected for its ability to invent and to come at issues from a different perspective.
From a New Zealand perspective, Australia was very good at picking up those ideas and scaling them.
New Zealand could be seen as "an incubator of ideas and technology" which could be scaled and taken to the world, she said.
