> far preferable to arranging a face to face meeting over this low impact, simple procedural issue

Whenever an issue involves people, slack simply won't suffice. There's too much good will lost on either side. "No worries if not [grumble grumble]!"

This isn't procedural, like sending an invoice to the wrong email address. This is a vp overstepping and threatening the success of another employee. They know what they're doing.

Id agree if it were a VP of Eng (total mess) or Product (should know and be bought in on the dev process) but this is a VP of sales. Depending on the company they can be much more operational and I would just assume that they asked the individual due to familiarity or happenstance and didn't understand the level of effort to deliver.

Quickly understanding the urgency/importance of the ask while communicating the impact it is having on the deliverable is the right call. Good business people work like this all the time. Seeing the discussion is a good learning opportunity for a junior.