Arnaud Rubeck (MBA 20): A Serial Entrepreneur in Singapore

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From Chongqing to Singapore, Arnaud Rubeck (MBA 20)  has lived multiple lives as both an intrapreneur and entrepreneur. A graduate of ESSEC’s EMBA, he has launched several projects and companies across Asia — in bakery, retail, and fintech. Today, as founder of ChaseFlow, a start-up specialising in automated invoice and debt management for SMEs, he represents a generation of international entrepreneurs for whom ESSEC was not just a school, but an accelerator of vision and maturity.

First venture: a 20-year-old entrepreneur in China

 It all began in 2010, when he was not yet 22. Living in Chongqing, China, Arnaud founded a chain of bakeries combining B2C retail and B2B wholesale — handling production, delivery, and marketing. “We were pioneers; everything was new. The energy was incredible.”
In just two and a half years, the company flourished and was later sold to a private equity fund — a successful first ‘exit’. 

From French bread to Délifrance’s Asia strategy

 Spotted by the Singapore Chamber of Commerce, he later joined Délifrance (Grands Moulins de Paris), whose products he already knew well: “They were partly my former suppliers — I knew them inside out.” He quickly became Operations Manager for Asia, overseeing 200 outlets across the region.
However, while he found the experience “educational”, it also revealed the limits of vertical management: “It was very top-down, very rigid, with lots of internal politics. I wasn’t yet ready to evolve in that kind of structure.” After a year, he returned to the field he knew best — entrepreneurship, or more precisely, intrapreneurship. 

The Kase: global expansion of a tech brand

 He then joined The Kase (now Pixmania), a young French brand of customisable mobile accessories, as a business developer: “For the first year, I shadowed the founder, Steve Rosenblum, launching the franchise and wholesale business in APAC.” Under his leadership, the brand expanded to more than 13 countries with over 2,500 signed franchise points of sale. Arnaud became Managing Director Worldwide (excluding France), leading international operations for five years.
When the founder decided to move on to a new project and left Singapore, Arnaud realised he was missing something crucial: “I had a lot of flexibility, but I felt I didn’t yet understand the world of executives — the C-level mindset.” This quest for understanding led him to ESSEC. 

ESSEC’s EMBA: learning to think like a leader

 “I didn’t want to go back to school just to learn theories. I wanted to understand people.” He considered several programmes: too young for some EMBAs, not drawn to the highly corporate or consultancy-oriented models of others. It was his meeting with Professor Cedomir Nestorovic, Programme Director, that convinced him: “He explained the EMBA’s logic and what was expected from participants.”
At ESSEC, he rediscovered a culture of debate, curiosity, and critical thinking: “You learn to challenge professors, not recite them. That’s what I loved: ‘think outside the box’ isn’t a slogan here — it’s reality.”
According to him, three major mindsets intersect at ESSEC: finance, luxury, and entrepreneurship. “I was clearly on the entrepreneurial side. That’s what makes this school unique: it’s inclusive, open, and deeply human.” 

TripTax: the fintech aiming to simplify VAT refunds

 His EMBA final project quickly became a real company: TripTax, a fintech dedicated to simplifying VAT refunds for Asian tourists in Europe. The idea: to streamline the tax refund process for visitors to France via an intuitive mobile app and automated system. “We wanted to modernise an archaic process. We had the best technology in the world… but regulation stopped our growth dead.”
Despite administrative barriers, TripTax raised nearly $2 million from family offices and venture capital funds across Europe, Asia, and the US, before being sold to ZapTax (Belgium) in January 2024: “The day the sale closed, I founded my next company.”

ChaseFlow: the start-up giving every SME an MNC-level advantage in B2B invoicing and debt recovery

 In 2024, he launched SansDebt (now a subsidiary of ChaseFlow), a SaaS solution helping SMEs manage their invoices and unpaid debts through automation and artificial intelligence. “SMEs waste an incredible amount of time chasing payments. I wanted to turn that problem into a simple, efficient, and accessible service.”
The promise: a 100% automated service, at a fixed cost of $15 per invoice, with a 97% recovery rate. Around this core technology, called ChaseFlow, Arnaud also developed Invoice4.Pro — a powerful invoicing platform — and the Late Payer Index (LPI), a rating agency analysing behaviour when invoices become overdue: “The goal is to help businesses focus on client relationships and make informed credit decisions, while all the ‘sensitive’ aspects are handled by a professional external team at a cost that allows full delegation.”