If anyone knows which levers to grasp to adjust government policy it should be Lord Levene of Portsoken. So his speech last night attacking the Treasury's tax policy should resonate beyond the London insurance market that he chairs.

The Lloyd's supremo knows the machinations of governments from the inside. And he has lengthy experience in jobs that require plenty of tenacity.

In the mid-1980s Michael Heseltine, then Defence Secretary, called him in to go head-to-head with suppliers to trim the oversized Ministry of Defence. He went on to advise Norman Lamont, the Chancellor, on competition and became adviser to John Major, the Prime Minister, on efficiency.

This expertise at cutting red tape and dispensing with niceties no doubt came in handy later when chairman of the Docklands Light Railway, in which role he put the troubled train company back on track.

Lord Levene's next job, as chairman and chief executive of Canary Wharf, also required grit. In the early 1990s, the development looked as if it might become a white elephant after potential tenants were hit by the recession and the building companies involved ran into financial problems. Lord Levene managed to turn it around.

He was made a life peer in 1997 and served as Lord Mayor of London from 1998 to 1999, a position that perfectly suited his ability to network. True to form, while Lord Mayor he cut the number of courses at banquets and sold the civic Rolls-Royce.

Four years in Bankers Trust International and in Deutsche Bank's London operations followed.

Lord Levene is chairman of General Dynamics UK and serves on the boards of Total, China Construction Bank and the Haymarket Group.

He sits as a crossbencher in the House of Lords despite a long history of working with the Conservatives. He also served at John Prescott's request as an adviser on the transport links to the Millennium Dome and remains determinedly non-partisan.

Peter Levene - born in 1941, the son of a silver antiques dealer from Willesden, in North London - started his career in United Scientific Holdings in 1963 and helped turn it from a company with 20 staff into an international defence contractor. By 1981, he had become chairman.

In his spare time, Lord Levene supports Chelsea Football Club. He is married, with two sons and a daughter.