Zhang Jindong was born in Tianchang, Anhui Province in 1963. He graduated from Chinese department at Nanjing Normal University.

Zhang Jindong together with his older brother Zhang Guiping (Chinese: 张桂平) opened a shop on Ninghai Road (Chinese: 宁海路) corner Jiangsu Road in Nanjing, selling air conditioning and related products in 1990. The brand Suning came from choosing one word each from Jiang-su and Ning-hai; the roads themselves were named after the city and province of the same name. Later Zhang Guiping exited the business and shifted into real estate, now known as Suning Universal. Zhang Jindong did however, also start his own real estate company Suning Real Estate some time later.

Zhang Jindong further developed his small shop into a business group, the Suning Group, within 15 years. He also founded and co-founded Suning Holdings Group and Suning Appliance Group respectively, as unlisted portions of his collection of businesses, leaving Suning.com (was known as Suning Commerce Group and other names) as the only listing company. In 2013’s Hurun Report’s China Rich List, Zhang was ranked No.9 with $6.4 billion. Zhang Jindong was ranked 28th in 2015 Forbes’s China Rich List.

On June 6, 2016, Zhang Jindong, via his own private holding company Suning Holdings Group, signed a contract to purchase the majority stake in Italian football club Inter Milan, by purchasing existing shares and through recapitalization. The deal was approved by the extraordinary general meeting on June 28, 2016, which after the deal, Suning Holdings Group owned 68.55% shares.

Steven became the chairman (Italian: presidente, lit. ‘president’) of Inter Milan on October 26, 2018.