About

Before moving in-house, Antonio Garza worked in both law firms and the public sector. He began his career at the Internal Ministry of Foreign Affairs participating in negotiations including the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a tri-lateral trading bloc of Canada, USA and Mexico. Having worked for law firms between 1994 and 1997, Garza joined the Federal Telecommunications Commission (COFETEL), gaining his first taste of the telecommunications industry. After a brief spell in-house at a hotel operating company, Garza moved back to the telecommunications industry in 1999 and has stayed in the sector since. Between 1999 and 2001, he was corporate counsel at Nortel Networks, before serving as vice president and general counsel at Nextel for 14 years. During this time dealt with a very public media campaign aimed at the company and over 120 litigation procedures concerning a spectrum auction. Despite opposition from other parties, Nextel was successful in gaining licensees crucial to its business plans. When Nextel was bought by global telecoms company, AT&T Digital Communications in 2015 for $1.9bn, Garza led the Mexican side of the deal. After the successful buyout, Garza was asked to stay on at AT&T and now holds a dual-role for the company. As regulatory executive director, he leads a team of 12 lawyers, economists and engineers and reports to the vice president and general counsel in the US. As senior compliance leader, Garza manages two engineers and an accountant reporting to the president of AT&T Mexico. Constantly seeking to innovate, Garza has brought tailored technology into the legal teams. The technology captures agreements and sends alerts for automatic renewals for instance. As a consequence he has created a service, results and business orientated culture in the team.