Michigan needs growth boost: Is Israel a model?

MACKINAC ISLAND -- Mark Davidoff, managing partner for Deloitte's Michigan practice, is the chair of the Detroit Regional Chamber's 2015 Mackinac Policy conference this week. On Tuesday before all 1,600 attendees arrives for today's launch, Free Press columnist Tom Walsh snagged Davidoff on the porch of the Grand Hotel for three quick questions:

Walsh: What's distinctive about the thrust of this year's 2015 Mackinac conference, reflecting the fact that Mark Davidoff is chairing it?

Davidoff: Overall, we have a re-set moment now (for Detroit and Michigan) – we're after bankruptcies, plural, between two elections, and if you look at what's been accomplished since 2010 it's really extraordinary.

The question now is, "What's next? And how do we get there?" And for me the answer is growth – pure economic growth, job growth, population growth. And the purpose of the conference is to search for a catalyst to drive that growth. Underneath that we have our pillars of talent, urban revitalization and cohesion.

Whether we're trying to attract somebody to invest in Michigan from China, or to come back to Michigan for a job, they need to hear us speak as one voice.

Related: Auto innovation at Mackinac: What will drive Michigan's future?

Walsh: One of your personal interests is Israel, where you have traveled about 40 times. You have tapped Dan Senor, co-author of a book about Israel called "Startup Nation," to speak at Mackinac this week. Why do you see Israel as a model for Detroit or Michigan to boost economic growth?

Davidoff: There are some interesting parallels. Look at Israel, in 67 years of existence, how did 8 million people from 100 countries convert itself from an agrarian society to one of the greatest innovation engines on the planet? There's a DNA to that. There's a societal, cultural commitment to innovation and entrepreneurship.

So how do we extract something from that incubator mentality and inject that in Michigan? We can't replicate what Israel is and does, but I believe there are components of that that are relevant to us as it relates to talent, to immigration, to the university system and public-private partnership environment. That should allow us to take some of those ideas and use it as one of the catalysts we're looking for.

I'll be taking 15 CEOs in November on the first-ever Michigan CEO mission to Israel. It's not a business-to-business mission, not a trade mission, not about selling products. This is about taking 15 thought leaders from Michigan to take a deep dive into this incubator ecosystem, to understand how does that happen, to see if we can identify an initiative or two that we can bring back to Michigan.

Walsh: Why does Deloitte care enough about Detroit and Michigan to have you invest so much time and energy organizing this event?

Davidoff: Deloitte's a global accounting and consulting firm. We've been in Detroit over 75 years. We have 1,200 people in Michigan, we're the largest professional services firm in Michigan. The firm has made huge investments in Detroit in the past number of years. We have new offices in Detroit, Grand Rapids and Midland – totally redone—and we are hiring 250 people a year, fulltime and interns.

We encourage our people to be good citizens by volunteering, by contributing their energy, intellectual capacity to help move various communities forward. Deloitte overall is very interested in community, The firm just selected Detroit to launch a 5-year pilot program focused on providing orientation to professional careers for urban students, starting in the 5th grade. Our hope is to create that template here in Detroit with Cornerstone as our collaborator, and then take it to cities all over the country.