Corporate documents showing the ownership structure and voting rights, an organizational chart showing who supervises the applicant, board minutes or resolutions related to the applicant's role, and a duty letter describing who assigns and reviews the applicant's work. These together show whether independent authority genuinely exists over the applicant's position.
Document the supervisory structure concretely
Gather the company's cap table or ownership records alongside its governance documents, since voting control matters more than the raw percentage. Get a written description of who the applicant reports to and what authority that person or body has, including hiring, evaluation, and termination authority. If other owners or a board genuinely direct the business, document their independent role clearly rather than leaving it implied.
Hypothetical example: a management consultant is offered a fifteen percent interest in a United States advisory firm alongside a salaried role reporting to a managing partner. A first review would ask for the shareholders' agreement rather than the share certificate, because that is where control usually lives, and would test whether the managing partner's authority over the applicant is real by asking who approved the last two hires and who set this year's targets. It would also confirm that the compensation is a salary rather than a distribution dressed as one, since how a person is paid is an ordinary indicator of how they are engaged.