Geographic spread needs to be connected with the applicant’s actual authority and duties.
Explain how work is directed and performed
Identify the real team relationships and operational support. The role must be primarily managerial or executive; listing countries or colleagues without explaining their work does not establish that capacity.
A multinational reporting map is context, not proof; the classification depends on what the applicant actually decides and who performs the underlying work. List each country team, identify which professionals or managers handle production or service delivery there, and specify which budget, staffing, or policy decisions the applicant makes without needing local approval. A geographically scattered team does not by itself establish that the role is primarily managerial or executive. The petition must also show an active parent, branch, subsidiary, or affiliate relationship and one continuous qualifying year of foreign employment within the preceding three years; for a new-office L-1A, that foreign year must itself have been in a managerial or executive capacity, the initial approval cannot exceed one year, and total L-1A time is generally capped at seven years. The mistake is presenting the country list as the evidence itself rather than as an index to the underlying authority and delegation records.
Hypothetical example: A specialty-cheese export coordinator in Sainte-Rose-du-Nord manages relationships with distributors in four countries. Her file identifies which pricing and contract decisions she makes independently, names the account staff who handle daily order processing in each market, and separately documents the qualifying corporate relationship and her continuous foreign employment, rather than relying on the country count to imply managerial scope.