Not in every case. Ordinary individual L evidence can establish a qualifying foreign managerial, executive or specialized-knowledge year; a new-office L-1A case specifically requires the foreign year to be managerial or executive.
Identify which rule applies before comparing titles
The intended U.S. role must still qualify as managerial or executive, and the employee must be qualified to perform it. Do not treat this distinction as permission to skip the foreign year or to classify a mainly operational U.S. job as management.
Only if the position is primarily managerial or executive when the whole year is counted. Possibly not, because the rule asks for one continuous year of qualifying employment abroad within the three years before the petition, and a long unpaid interruption can break continuity. Use the operational reality, including work performed by other teams, and independently document the qualifying organizations and foreign employment. The relationship must be one the regulations recognize, proven by ownership and control records showing the same owners hold both entities in qualifying proportions. What the relationship must be is real, documented, and accompanied by evidence that both the Canadian and the United States operations are actively doing business.