Her Story
About Amber
Amber Winters is a seasoned payroll professional currently serving as Payroll Manager at Fidium Fiber, where she oversees end-to-end payroll operations in a fast-paced, private equity–backed environment. In this role, she manages multi-state payroll processing, ensures compliance with certified payroll and prevailing wage requirements, and supports system-driven improvements using platforms such as PeopleSoft and UKG. Her work centers on accuracy, compliance, and operational efficiency while maintaining alignment with organizational goals in the telecommunications infrastructure sector.
She brings approximately 15 years of progressive experience in payroll, beginning in staffing as a backup payroll assistant before transitioning into a Texas-based construction company, where she advanced from timekeeper to payroll processor, lead, and eventually supervisor. Over nearly a decade, she helped scale payroll operations as the organization expanded into a multi-state business. She later joined a private equity–owned firm, where she played a key role in stabilizing and preparing payroll systems for acquisition readiness, ensuring certified payroll compliance and process consistency.
Throughout her career, Amber has developed a strong specialization in payroll management, process improvement, audit readiness, and team leadership. She is known for streamlining workflows, supporting cross-functional collaboration, and advocating for automation and system integration to reduce manual workloads. Outside of her technical expertise, she is also recognized for her mentorship approach and commitment to continuous improvement, balancing professional rigor with personal interests in gardening, homesteading, and family life.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Amber
01What do you attribute your success to?
I'm always proud of the fact that I just love to continue to absorb knowledge and learn and grow. My goals are usually always just to grow my knowledge, and I think that comes with new companies, new experiences, and being open to other opportunities that come within payroll. There's not just one lane to payroll, there's many offshoots, and learning as much as I can about every area of payroll is really my long-term goal, always. I believe in being ready to work hard, work nights, long hours, but if you can adjust the process to work for you, you can reduce that. I've always been willing to take on new challenges and step outside my comfort zone to build my knowledge and skills.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best advice I received came from my director of payroll at Weber, which eventually turned into Ferrovial. When I had reached the cap of where I was going to get with that company and was asking where I could go from here and what else I could learn, she told me that if I wanted to learn more, I should see where I could go to learn more and get to that next level. She was supportive even though it meant she would take a loss on her team - when I left, I think they hired two people to take on what I was doing. It's hard to be supportive when you're in a managerial position because that requires you knowing you're going to lose someone valuable, but she gave me the pep talks behind closed doors when I needed them and was really that person for me.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Be ready to work hard, work nights, long hours. If you can adjust the process to work for you, you can reduce that. Don't be afraid to ask for opportunities to grow and excel in the field. When I started at Weber, I had a conversation with my soon-to-be boss in the interview and said, hey, if you hire me, I want every opportunity to grow and excel in this field, if you will give that to me. And she said absolutely. Be open to learning and don't be afraid to move on when you've reached the cap of where you can grow at a company. Sometimes you need to find new experiences and opportunities to continue building your knowledge.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
One of the biggest challenges is that if you don't have an executive leadership team that understands payroll, it can sometimes be discounted to a magic wand, if you will. There's not a true understanding sometimes from an executive leadership team of how much goes into it, and the stress to be made to do more with less is sometimes a challenge that arises, depending on the company. On the opportunity side, we are transitioning a lot of things to AI automation, and there are definitely things that we're utilizing in AI to create things that our system doesn't have, like dashboards and analytics. This technology is creating new possibilities for improving efficiency and capabilities in payroll operations.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Work-life balance is very important to me. I'm working towards a situation where my team and I don't have to work a weekend or late hours. My company is really great and offers a flex schedule with no PTO balance - just if your supervisor approves it, you can take it. My supervisor really stresses that this is just work, you have a life outside of here, and I take every opportunity I can to take off a little bit. Outside of work, family is central to my life. I very much like homesteading - I have a huge garden, chickens, meat birds. We ride dirt bikes, four-wheelers, and I have two little ones, so we do all the fun things with them, go to water parks, just having a fun family life. Professionally, I value taking your work seriously and being proud of what you do, not just riding the wave to the next thing.
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