IN THIS GUIDE · Whether a meat-processing general manager transfers as an executive or as a manager
Start with the L-1A eligibility and application overview
The two capacities are not interchangeable, and the chart decides which one applies
Managerial capacity means primarily managing the organization or a department, function or subdivision of it, supervising professional or supervisory staff or managing an essential function, with authority over personnel decisions or over the function's direction. Executive capacity means primarily directing the management of the organization, setting goals and policies, exercising wide latitude in discretionary decision-making and receiving only general supervision. Delphine's Powassan chart shows her directing a production superintendent, a quality manager and a maintenance lead, and answering to shareholders rather than to an operating executive. That reads as executive on the Canadian side. Whether it reads the same way in the United States depends on what the American chart will look like.
Where these petitions usually come apart: a thin chart at the receiving end
The failure is rarely the year abroad, which is normally easy to prove, and rarely the corporate relationship once a share purchase closes. It is the American plant. A further-processing facility acquired with thirty employees but no supervisory layer leaves Delphine directing line workers herself, which is neither executive nor managerial however senior her title. Petitions of this kind commonly assert a structure that exists only in a slide deck. The evidence has to show the subordinate layer as it stands, name the positions still to be filled, and give the hiring schedule and budget behind them, or the description will be read as an owner-operator running a plant.
The other common failure: a Canadian chart that dissolves after she leaves
Both entities must continue doing business throughout, and the Canadian company must remain a real employer rather than a shell holding the American plant. Groups sometimes move their strongest manager south and quietly wind down the operation she leaves behind, which ends the qualifying relationship on which the transfer depends. Before filing, the group should know who will run the Powassan plant, and that person should appear on a chart with their own reporting lines. A second, subtler problem arises where Delphine keeps signing for the Canadian company from the United States: the petition then describes a role split across two entities, which is harder to defend at extension.
Sources reviewed 2026-09-07. This guide covers a preparation focus; it is not an individual eligibility assessment.