Berthier Ribeiro-Neto holds a PhD in Computer Science from University of California, Los Angeles (1995). Since graduating, he has become a professor at the Computer Science Department at UFMG (Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil), where he still teaches on a part-time basis. En 1999, he published the book Modern Information Retrieval, with co-author Professor Ricardo Baeza-Yates, which became a bestseller in this area.

In 2000, Berthier founded Akwan Information Technologies, a start up initiated by a group of professors and students from UFMG to provide search services to users and companies in Brazil. In 2005, Akwan was acquired by Google and became the Center of Engineering of Latin America, which works -among other things- on the future of Search under Berthier's leadership.