No disagreement here. Still the Accountant / Finance person that I was referring to is still quite senior and made that blunder.
Just like accountants, Marketing graduates also go through introductory courses on accounting/finance for good measure.
The problem comes when too much emphasis is put on "visible" and easy to maipulate targets such as finance ratios. Contrary to that, loss of business is much more difficult to regain. Most often than not, Company Balance Score Cards have a heavy weighting towards the Finance aspects. Nothing wrong with that.
My point was on a cautionary tone, whereby some Finance people forget that without business, there is no need for Finance and finance ratios (taken to the extreme of course). Still, considering the "bigger picture" is of utmost importance.
BTW, the CEO's that you mentioned that come from an Accounting background would have evolved to be more business-like to reach those levels.