Zhang was born in Shanghai in 1972. He studied finance at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics. Zhang first joined Taobao, an Alibaba subsidiary, in 2007 as its chief financial officer. He became the chief operating officer of Taobao the following year, and was later promoted to president of Tmall, a business-to-consumer shopping spinoff from Taobao. He became COO of Alibaba Group in 2013, and eventually succeeded Jonathan Lu as the CEO in 2015. During his career, Zhang created Singles Day, an unofficial Chinese holiday with gross sales reaching four times higher than Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined.