The actual duties and relevant legal conditions control. Under the ordinary L rule, foreign managerial, executive or specialized-knowledge work may support the qualifying year; the U.S. L-1A role has its own test.
Explain the change in responsibility honestly
Do not invent matching titles or overlook the narrower foreign managerial-or-executive condition in a new-office L-1A case. Describe what the employee genuinely did and will do.
The petitioner must also prove a qualifying parent, branch, subsidiary, or affiliate relationship and one continuous year of qualifying employment abroad during the preceding three years; the business-activity showing must follow the separate rules for an established or initial new office. An affiliate relationship depends on the same person or entity owning and controlling both companies, so a venture split evenly with an unrelated American family usually fails unless a shareholders agreement or other instrument gives the Canadian side actual control. The expectation is generally one continuous year of qualifying employment with the related organisation abroad within the relevant preceding three-year period, and how a leave, a resignation, or time spent in the United States interacts with that window is a case-specific question for counsel.