MACKINAC ISLAND — Kevin Johnson, the incoming president and CEO of the Detroit Economic Growth Corp., pretty much came full circle at the Mackinac Policy Conference this week.

It was during the annual gathering of business, political and philanthropic leaders five years ago that homebuilder PulteGroup Inc. revealed it was moving its Bloomfield Hills headquarters to Atlanta. It was a deal that Johnson worked on as a top official at Invest Atlanta, where Thursday was his last full day; he becomes head of the DEGC on June 12.

He talked with Crain's reporter Kirk Pinho about his priorities and focuses for the economic development organization and other topics on Mackinac Islandon Thursday.

What follows is a partial transcript of that conversation.

Kirk Pinho: It's been a little over a month since you were selected for the job. Have you been able to informally get your bearings on the organization, chat with staff, that sort of thing?

Kevin Johnson: One thing I've learned about the team at the DEGC is that they are highly skilled, very talented and with a depth of the gravity of what they work on on a day-to-day basis that I find to be very comforting as the new guy coming in.

But I also know there are other things we are going to try to accomplish. My presence is to unleash some of those things. I think organizationally, we are very sound. I am so impressed with our board leadership.

You don't have to suck up to the board here.

During my interview, I was interviewing. They were interviewing me, and I was interviewing them. I'm coming from a city that is doing great things. Atlanta is one of the leading cities in the world, quite frankly, for the types of jobs and investment that many communities seek. I didn't want to lose having the leadership that I had in Atlanta by coming to Detroit. I wanted them to be as committed to the work that we need to do as what I'm leading in Atlanta.

When we spoke last, I brought up PulteGroup. It was five years ago at this conference that the news came out.

I'm sorry (laughter).

What about in terms of other recruitment or development strategies that you think are pressing? Any sort of changes you feel will be necessary?

One thing I did say to our staff is, if they thought we were aggressive before me, we are going to be even more aggressive when I get here. What I mean by that is, we have a window in Detroit. Windows open and windows close. Because we have this window to really accelerate the connectedness of what we are trying to do from a political, business and private sector perspective, it is imperative to go out into the market, targeting customers that we think will we most responsive to our message and share with them what's going on in our city. We need to do that at a high rate of speed. These windows open, and they close.

We are going to talk about branding and rebranding Detroit. We are going to markets where there will be an attractive opportunity for us to share our message. To be very cluster-focused, in terms of industry clusters. Peter Chapman (executive vice president for business development at the DEGC) and his team are doing a great job at that now, but I want to add a higher rate of urgency. I think we are already doing that. The announcement with Tata Technologies is an example of that, but we are going to do it domestically and internationally. That's what my sweet spot is as a practitioner.

I'm gonna pull an unrealistic example off the top of my head: Going to downtown Chicago and talking to the head of real estate for McDonald's (and lure them out of the Windy City for a Detroit headquarters).

Why is that unrealistic?

Well, they have been pretty well based near Chicago ever since their founding.

So was Pulte. Those things, that's not unrealistic. When there is a signal that a corporation is seeking new markets. When a corporation thinks that this neighborhood is where the action is, this neighborhood is where opportunities are, and they signal that to us, legacy companies move all the time. Fortune 500s don't, but some Fortune 500s do.

Maybe I just used the McDonald's example because I want an Egg McMuffin right now.

That's my favorite sandwich. I get where you're coming from.

So does that mean going to companies that you feel might like to have an outpost, North American headquarters, international headquarters in the city, big or small, and say, "Hey, here is what we can offer, not only in terms of real estate, but also in terms of incentives that trickle through the DEGC. What do you think?" Am I reading that right?

You are completely reading that right. It is our responsibility to seek opportunities where they are. We can be aspirational. I do this all the time. I say, "Give me a list of the top companies in health information technology, or in food. Give me the top 50 list in the industry clusters that we target." Then let's do some analysis on them. How long have they been in their existing locations? What are their revenue projections? Where do they have regional operation centers? Do they have any in the Midwest? If not, should that be us?

It's almost like you're doing a cost-benefit analysis.

You're literally doing that. You shrink that list down to targets, specific targets, and then you say, "Let's figure out how we can get a meeting and talk about the benefits and competitive advantage of having operations in Detroit." That's the science behind what we do. But now I can launch our team to go out and make those calls.

Those industry clusters you were talking about, can you say what they are?

Advanced manufacturing, autonomous, it's food, it's health and health IT, it's logistics and transportation. Those are the identified clusters. And then there are subclusters. Mobility would be one of those. We want to play in that space. We are going to play in that space. But I think when you are clear about what that looks like. Then the work we do as a team, organization and a city, it becomes very, very clear about where we think our future is.