None of these other teams ever involve the CEO for key activities? E.g. sales has a major client that wants top level visibility to sign the contract on the big deal? I was in sales many years and anything from letters of commitment to flyouts with the CEO was always a big factor in the large deals - it gave a sense of "we have full assurance they are focused on this" to the customer and was very helpful.

I'm not sure it justifies the salary, but that's a different thing.