Shayne Kuhaneck

Chief Accounting Officer Rippling

Last Reviewed: September 19, 2026

Executive Summary

Shayne Kuhaneck is Chief Accounting Officer at Rippling, the software company that combines payroll, benefits, HR and IT administration into a single system of record for the workforce. He arrived in the job by an unusual route for a private-company accounting chief. Most of his formative career was spent not applying accounting standards but writing them, at the Financial Accounting Standards Board, where he rose from assistant director of technical activities to acting technical director and then deputy technical director, with responsibility for the board’s technical accounting and research staff. That gives him first-hand authorship experience of the credit-loss, hedging, financial-instruments and lease standards that most controllers spend their careers interpreting.

Career Highlights

• Named acting technical director of the FASB in May 2019, then deputy technical director, helping manage the board’s technical accounting and research activities and its staff.
• As assistant director of technical activities, oversaw implementation of the FASB standards on credit losses, hedging, recognition and measurement of financial instruments, and leases.
• Directed FASB projects covering share-based payments, consolidation, and the distinction between liabilities and equity.
• Served as a senior technical advisor in GE Capital’s Accounting Policy Group, on acquisitions and disposals of significant businesses, impairment of financial assets, derivatives and hedging, consolidation, and debt-versus-equity classification.
• Began in public accounting in KPMG’s Hartford, Connecticut audit practice, auditing global public and private companies in consumer products, manufacturing and technology, with a specialism in financial instruments under US GAAP.
• Certified Public Accountant in Connecticut; veteran of the United States Navy submarine force.

Professional Journey

Kuhaneck grew up in western New York and graduated from a high-school class of twenty-four. He began his professional career in KPMG’s Hartford audit practice, working with global public and private companies across consumer products, manufacturing and technology, and developing a specialism in the accounting for financial instruments under US GAAP — the subject matter that would define the rest of his career. He also spent time in Big Four advisory work at PwC.

He moved into industry as a senior technical advisor in GE Capital’s Accounting Policy Group, a role that put him on the hardest end of technical accounting at a very large balance sheet, covering acquisitions and disposals of significant businesses, impairment of financial assets, derivatives and hedging, consolidation, and the classification of debt and equity.

He rejoined the FASB in June 2015. As assistant director of technical activities he owned implementation for a demanding run of standards — credit losses, hedging, recognition and measurement of financial instruments, and leases — and directed projects on share-based payments, consolidation, and liability-equity distinctions. In May 2019 he was appointed the board’s acting technical director, and external correspondents were writing to him in that capacity through at least early 2020. He subsequently served as deputy technical director, managing the technical accounting and research function and its staff.

From standard-setting he returned to industry, taking accounting leadership at Fanatics from 2022, covering the Fanatics Betting and Gaming business, before joining Rippling as Chief Accounting Officer. He has spoken publicly about the value of unsparing technical review — recalling a director’s brutal verdict on an early FASB memo and concluding simply that the criticism had been correct.

Education

University of Connecticut

B.S., Accounting