Datuk Ahrens holds Masters in both Mechanical Engineering and Business Administration from the Technical University Darmstadt, Germany. Upon graduation, Datuk Ahrens joined the international engineering and industrial plant supplier, KOCH Transporttechnik GmbH in Germany, now belonging to FLSmidth Group, where he held a senior management position for 12 years, working mainly in Germany, USA and South Africa. In 1997, he was based in Kuala Lumpur as General Manager of KOCH in South East Asia and became its Managing Director in 1999. He joined Melewar Group in 2002 and has since held senior management positions including Chief Executive Officer of Melewar Integrated Engineering Sdn Bhd (now known as MIE Tech Sdn Bhd) ("MIE Tech"), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Melewar Industrial Group Berhad ("MIG"). On 14 August 2020, MIG had disposed of its shares in MIE Tech to Datuk Ahrens, and therefore MIE Tech ceased to be subsidiary of MIG.