Direct reports are not an absolute requirement for a function manager. The evidence must identify an essential function, the person’s senior-level responsibility for it and discretion over its operation. A title or high salary does not establish those facts, and the person must primarily manage rather than perform the function.
Establish the function first
The assessment tends to turn on whether the function is genuinely essential to the organization and whether the position operates at a senior level in relation to it. Assemble evidence about the function before writing anything about the individual. Where the role also performs much of the underlying work personally, say so plainly; counsel can then advise whether the case is viable, what would strengthen it, and whether another classification deserves discussion.
One preliminary point often goes unexamined in a function-manager case: whether the two businesses actually hold a qualifying relationship. The relationship has to be one of the recognised kinds — parent, branch, subsidiary or affiliate — and common ownership must be traced rather than asserted. A carefully argued function claim cannot rescue an unqualifying relationship, since the two are assessed independently of one another.
Confirm the corporate side first, because it is a matter of record and can usually be answered within days. Hypothetical example: a harbour services company has treated a long-standing joint venture as an affiliate, and the share register turns out to show a structure that has to be examined before any description of the function is drafted. Ask at the outset who holds the constitutional documents and how quickly they can be produced.