Mr. Arslan is an economist who retired after a 27-year work at the World Bank. In his last assignment in the Bank, he was the principal author of the 2017 World Bank Group Country Engagement Report. Mr. Arslan was previously a senior economist in the World Bank's Europe and Central Asia Region, where he was the principal author of two Country Economic Memorandums for Turkey. He was a core member of the World Bank team that assisted Turkey's response to economic crisis in 2000-2001.

Before joining the World Bank, Mr. Arslan was Senior Adviser to the Undersecretary in the Ministry of Development in Ankara, Turkey. He has authored or co-authored technical papers on monetary policy, fiscal policy, privatization, tax and export incentives, exchange rate policy, and sustainability of industrial exporting. He has graduate degrees from Ankara University and Michigan State University.