No. Prove the actual qualifying corporate relationship through ownership and control.
Read the transaction rather than the sign
A brand licence or continuing customer relationship does not automatically establish parent, branch, subsidiary or affiliate status.
The regulation asks for one continuous year of qualifying employment abroad in the three years before filing, and the petition must establish that the year was in a managerial, executive or specialized-knowledge capacity. Two operating companies owned by the same two shareholders in the same proportions are affiliated through common control, and that is a recognised structure rather than a workaround. The qualifying relationship must exist between the current foreign entity and the US entity, and the applicant's one continuous year of qualifying employment abroad must still be provable across the change of employer. A function manager manages the essential function rather than principally performing it; a regional title alone does not establish senior authority. Managerial capacity can rest on directing an essential function rather than on supervising a headcount, so a small organization is not automatically excluded, but the function must be identifiable and the authority over it real.