She said the Hub's primary measure of success would be jobs.
Hawke's Bay Chamber of Commerce CEO Wayne Walford said the region had ready resources for growth, with the labour pool including 100 able CEOs "waiting for the next opportunity".
Business incubator The Icehouse Hawke's Bay manager Michaela Vodanovich said there was a false perception that education for business people was expensive - NZTE funding was available for Icehouse enrolment.
Food Hawke's Bay manager Patricia Small said there was no shortage of capital in Hawke's Bay, just good business advice.
Sometimes education was not enough - the person who started a business wasn't always the best to grow it.
"Many of them think they can do it all themselves," she said.
The group visited apple exporter Rockit, where managing director Phil Alison has succeeded in growing the business on his own, but struggled with finance - he had to travel to the Bay of Plenty to fund his expanded operation, succeeding with a Dragons' Den-style pitch to angel investors.
The group was keen to find examples of how the Government could remove barriers to business growth. It found a barrier that nearly sunk a flagship Hawke's Bay exporter.
In 2011 Invicta's Neil McGarva proudly showed Prime Minister John Key the world's first UHT baby's bottle with a sterile teat at the plant's official opening.
The 2009 joint venture with Malaysian company Etika International and local investors had its production line installed in 2010, but gaining health and safety compliance from the government-owned agency was very difficult.
The agency was understaffed, with many contracted overseas and inexperienced with UHT.
Sporadic visits from inspectors would give the company a list of items to address, which would be completed within days, and if an inspector was available a return visit would not take place for six weeks.
"We went through eight different auditors over a nine-month period while we sat with our trained staff and production facility waiting to start," he said. The delay cost more than $1 million. "A lot of businesses wouldn't have survived that."
Invicta's experience was not uncommon in the industry, he said.
Finding skilled engineers with UHT experience was a challenge and overseas recruiting risky as some people could fake their credentials, he said.
"We just have to take people who are in the ball park and develop them."
When asked why Hawke's Bay was the business' location, he said it had "fantastic" artesian water, great logistics through Napier Port and no waste issues thanks to being on the site of the former Whakatu meat works.
The site came with 5-litre-per-second discharge rights. To receive those right from the Hawke's Bay Regional Council would cost $300,000 "as a cash-up-front contribution". The region also had good gas supply. The company's large boiler would require diesel "anywhere north of Huntly" costing an extra $30,000 per month more than gas.
At True Earth owner Scott Lawson said, there were growing numbers of "unemployable" people locally.
Labour could account for up to 90 per cent of produce sale price. Horticultural work was tough and organic horticultural "even tougher" - some work was done on hands and knees. He has a picture book of jobs, which helped lessen the number of people walking off the job.
He said the Government's Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme took pressure of the local labour pool.
"Growers have a narrow window and if you have problems with the weather you have an even narrower one," he said.
"Nothing would please me more than to employ everyone unemployed in Napier and Hastings, but the truth is, it is not viable."
Provisional tax was "a punishment" for having a good year and national biosecurity "was really slack". The potato psyllid meant True Earth lost eight jobs.
There were seven nationalities on his export blueberry packing line, many applying thanks to favourable reviews of True Earth as an employer on social media.
The blueberries were destined for Australia, where people were loyal to Australian-made and would pay more for conventional Australian fruit than premium New Zealand fruit.
At Te Mata Mushrooms, owner Michael Whittaker said complying with resource consents was its biggest challenge.
It had made compost at the site since 1967 but complaints from residents in a new housing development bordering the business were increasing.
The district council had made no provision for the existing activity, giving residents "disproportionate power".
Differing council interpretations of the Resource Management Act was "a big issue for all provincial towns".
"Regional and district councils are not aligned," he said.
The company planned a dairy farm/tourist facility at its Havelock North site, requiring 13 resource consents.
"We have spent $250,000 in the last two years and we haven't got anywhere."
A noise consultant had to be flown in "to tell us the noise from the tinkle of tea cups and wine glasses" would be less than the industrial noise from the 120-staff business with its 800 daily truck and car movements.
The company had planned to grow the mushroom market by treating them with light. Mushrooms are the only food with vitamin D, known as the sunshine vitamin, but only if it has been exposed to ultraviolet light.
Machinery costing $100,000 was imported but labelling laws prohibit the company saying Vitamin D is good for health, or even pointing to a third party saying vitamin D is beneficial.
Furnware owner Hamish Whyte said his company's success had been helped with patents and research by government agency New Zealand Trade & Enterprise. The school-furniture manufacturer continues to grow - this year it will start a night shift.
The company sold "the whole room" to schools and kept ahead of Chinese imitation by thorough classroom research.
"There is no such thing as fidgeting - it's just that kids were uncomfortable," he said.
The group had dinner at St Georges Restaurant in Havelock North, where Crowe Howarth's Hawke's Bay chief executive, Rick Cranswick, said the region needed the Central Hawke's Bay "game-changing" irrigation scheme.
"We must get it over the line," he said.
"Government might need to help us with this." Council amalgamation was needed because red tape was "a bloody nightmare".
"The small businesses can't do it."
Tim Turvey, a self-confessed "simple farm boy" told his Clearview Winery story.
He bought his Te Awanga land 30 years ago when there were fewer rules and regulations, enabling him to easily open a restaurant "in the middle of a paddock".
"We have to pay provisional tax before we know what our profit is, which is bollocks," he said.
Wine was a "passion-driven" industry and Sir Graham Avery's Hawke's Bay Wine Country initiative got it working collaboratively.
The group convener, Wairoa-born but Auckland-based Tenby Powell, said it was a valuable exercise for the Wellington-based group.
"It is great to get out and understand some of the challenges regional business owners face - they are profound," he said.
"The learning has been fantastic - everyone is just buzzing.
Widespread enthusiasm and collaboration in Hawke's Bay "is worth its weight in gold".
He said red tape and the RMA were two issues consistently raised by small-to-medium companies nationwide.
"Four or five guys today said the issues were more with local government than central government.We will have to work with local government at some stage."