Wayne Watts was born in Abilene, Texas, and grew up in Dallas. He graduated from the University of Texas at Arlington with a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration in 1976. He received his Juris Doctorate in 1980 from SMU Dedman School of Law.

Watts is senior executive vice president and general counsel of AT&T and is responsible for all legal matters at AT&T. He was appointed to this position in June 2007.

Prior to his current appointment, Watts served as vice president and associate general counsel for AT&T Inc., with legal responsibility for mergers and acquisitions, wireless operations, international operations, strategic planning, U-verse strategy and general corporate matters.
Prior to SBC Communications’ acquisition of AT&T, he served as vice president and assistant general counsel for SBC, with responsibility for a variety of general corporate and subsidiary legal matters, including SBC’s mergers and acquisitions and wireless operations.

Watts joined Southwestern Bell Telephone Company in 1983 as an attorney in Dallas. In 1986, he became general attorney for Southwestern Bell Publications in St. Louis, and two years later he joined the mergers and acquisitions staff of SBC’s legal department in St. Louis.

In 1989, Watts was named vice president-general attorney and secretary for Southwestern Bell Mobile Systems in Dallas. He became general attorney and assistant general counsel for SBC Communications Inc. in 1995 and served as legal counsel for SBC’s mergers and acquisitions and wireless operations.  Throughout his tenure, Watts helped lead a series of mergers and acquisitions, valued at a total of more than $200 billion, that transformed SBC from the smallest of the Baby Bells to the largest communications holding company in the world.

Watts is a member of the advisory board of the Salvation Army’s Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex Command, the Development Board at the University of Texas at Arlington, and serves on the Executive Board of SMU Dedman School of Law.