Possibly, if the applicant will genuinely develop and direct the enterprise rather than fund it passively. Show who now holds decision-making authority, how daily operations will be covered, and that treaty ownership still meets the at least 50 percent test. The answer turns on the arrangement that will actually exist.
Prove direction with decisions, not titles
Naming yourself managing director changes little on its own. Identify the concrete choices you will make in the first year — supplier terms, pricing, hiring, lease negotiation, budget approval — and who executes them. If an experienced manager is hired to replace the departed partner, define their authority narrowly enough that direction remains with the investor.
A plan showing an owner who merely receives reports invites doubt about whether the investor really directs the business. Write the year in decisions, not in duties. A list of twelve choices the investor will personally make — the lease terms, the opening price list, the first two hires, the supplier who gets the account — persuades more than a paragraph asserting control.
Hypothetical example: after an operating partner withdraws from a planned eyewear retail supply venture, the investor hires an experienced manager but reserves pricing, purchasing above a stated limit, and all hiring; the delegation document setting that out is the evidence, not the job title. Keep the other conditions intact: treaty nationality, an investment irrevocably committed and at risk, and an enterprise that is not marginal.