Ask Michael Snyder what his main achievement has been in five years as chairman of the Policy and Resources Committee of the City of London and you might reasonably expect him to cite Crossrail.

He is the man who hammered through a £150million levy on London businesses and a £200million contribution from the City Corporation's own coffers that broke the deadlock last autumn over this essential transport project, “the only real improvement”, he says, “that can make a step change in London in our lifetimes”.

Business, and City and Canary Wharf institutions in particular, had claimed that the project was essential to London's survival by providing faster transport links to Heathrow and reducing congestion on the existing network. But the Treasury had balked at the cost and the project stalled. Given the £16billion that Crossrail will cost by the time it opens in 2017, the deal brokered by Mr Snyder looks like good value.

But he insists that this settlement would never have been possible without earlier lobbying efforts by the Corporation that put the subject of the competitiveness of the City on the political agenda. As a consequence, he says, all three parties are united for the first time in their appreciation of the importance of financial services.

The industry as a whole accounts for, he reels off with practised ease, 26 per cent of the UK's corporation tax take, £18billion to £20billion of revenues to the public exchequer, and another £18billion in foreign earnings. The council he has run, he says, is much more outward-facing than it was a decade ago, and more willing to fight its corner and put its case in Whitehall and elsewhere. It is also more efficient and able to take decisions more quickly.

This is partly, he believes, because of the shift from the Bank of England to the Financial Services Authority (FSA) of the responsibility for City regulation in December 2001. This left a vacuum, because the Bank, which had previously been seen as the voice of the City, withdrew to concentrate on monetary policy. The FSA's job was solely to regulate. “There was a real need for some focus, some facilitation, in the representation of the views of City businesses,” he says. The City Corporation stepped into the role.

Mr Snyder says that the City's higher political profile made it easier to accelerate the transport link.

“Getting the City on the agenda in itself helped to get Crossrail.”

He took over as chairman of the most powerful committee at Guildhall, where the local authority is based, in early 2003, having previously chaired the Finance Committee. He had a difficult act to follow. His predecessor, Dame Judith Mayhew, as she was then, was a fiercely driven New Zealander. As an Antipodean and a woman, she was not entirely accepted by the old boys' network that still prevails in places, but she could be staggeringly effective.

One of Mr Snyder's first acts was to put in place rules that would not allow him or his successors to stay on beyond five years, although they serve as deputy for an additional year. You could do this job for ever - but you shouldn't, he says.

In his day job, he is senior partner at Kingston Smith, a firm of chartered accountants that he joined in 1974, rising to managing partner five years later. This will take up more of his time now, although he is seeking other unspecified work, “very much staying in business, local government, City, financial services, accounting”, he says. He is not interested in lucrative non-executive posts, preferring a senior job at some public or private organisation. One senses that a useful quango or a reasonable-sized public company might fit the bill.

Ask which achievements he is proudest of, Crossrail and the City's heightened political profile aside, and he hammers out a long list of innovations and initiatives. He cites the establishment of offshoot bodies in Brussels, Beijing, Shanghai and Bombay. He also mentions Careers Open House, an inclusion initiative that has brought 2,000 youngsters from the deprived London boroughs that ring the City to experience the atmosphere there. “It shows what they can achieve - and that we don't have horns growing out of our heads,” he says.

Then there is the ever-changing City skyline - a quarter of all office space has been redeveloped over the past ten years. But, as the financial meltdown continues, do we really need all these new offices being built? “Yes, we do,” he says, becoming impassioned for the first time. “Broadgate Tower, 850,000sqft, was spec built. It's full. Heron Tower is going ahead, no problem. Everyone said Swiss Re [the Gherkin] wouldn't fill up. It's full.” There is, he says, only a year's supply of offices on the market, about par for the course at any given time. “We will need it.”

There is the transformation of Cheapside. By 2011 there will be 1.6millionsqft of retail space between St Paul's and the Royal Exchange, not bad for a financial centre that two decades ago could not boast a single decent bookshop. The downside, he admits: “Sometimes it looks like one big building site.”

As he rushes off to a meeting with business leaders, Mr Snyder takes the orthodox view within financial services that there is nothing wrong with the system, just the way it has been operated. I ask whether he is happy to be standing down. He seems genuinely not to have considered the question before. “I don't know,” he says. He does know that he will miss the contact with politicians and business leaders, and the sense of being at the centre of things. “I am slightly apprehensive.”

He disappears up the steps of the Guildhall art gallery for his meeting.

I suspect he will miss it all.

CV:

Born Reading, Pennsylvania, 1950
Education Brentwood School; City of London College
1974 Partner, Kingston Smith chartered accountants
1979 Managing partner, Kingston Smith
1990 Senior partner, Kingston Smith
1992 Chairman, Association of Practising Accountants
1997 Chairman, Kingston Smith Consultants Ltd
1997 Chairman, Kingston Smith Financial Services Ltd; fellow of the Institute of Directors; member of the Securities Institute
1998-2002 Chairman, Finance Committee, City of London
2003-08 Chairman, Policy and Resources Committee, City of London; member, Court of Common Council
Family Married, two daughters

Times Recommends

• Lies and cover-up at MG Rover exposed by report
• High oil prices push manufacturing costs up
• Primark founder steps down as chief executive