Meet the team
Michael Ansusinha, Founder
Michael Ansusinha is President and Founder of Snowlake Group. Michael graduated from Northwestern University (’20) with a BA in Economics & Psychology (Honors), during which he worked at Goldman Sachs (Investment Banking) and AQR Capital Management, the world's second largest hedge fund. He will be a Moelis Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School (’25).
Outside of work, Michael is on the Associate Board of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, After School Matters, and Chicago Scholars. He enjoys hiking, tennis, travel (16 countries), and trying new restaurants. Michael lives in Chicago's South Side
Ted Ansusinha, Advisor
Ted founded and led Entiera, a SAAS company, growing the firm to 75 employees before being acquired by Fair Isaac Corporation (NYSE: FICO). Previously, he was a Partner at Accenture, where he interfaced with Fortune 100 companies and led the US Customer Analytics and Marketing Automation practice.
Ted brings invaluable business experience, helping advise on and develop Snowlake's maintenance, leasing, and tenant processes.
Jesus Villanueva, Maintenance Manager
Jesus manages Snowlake's maintenance, from renovating units to preparing for Section 8 inspections.
After coming to the United States from El Salvador, Jesus worked at Home Depot before starting his flooring business. Although Jesus focuses on flooring, he has extensive experience with all aspects of contracting work, from helping renovate coffee shops across Chicago to adding new carpeting for Prada's Michigan Avenue shop. In addition, being a resident of one of Snowlake’s buildings, Jesus also assists with tenant relations.
Jesus has lived in one of Snowlake’s South Side properties for over 6 years.
Manolo Vasquez de Paz, Maintenance
Manolo assists with day-to-day maintenance tasks.
Manolo lives in one of Snowlake's South Side properties.
Snowlake's Story
Revitalizing Buildings
Snowlake Group’s focus on revitalizing buildings, and its values of acting ethically and innovatively, are built on its first building, a distressed, 33-unit courtyard in Jackson Park.
While the Jackson Park building had great returns on paper, in person it had three drug dealers and three lookouts who had taken over half the property. The building was losing money every month and even had a few homicides when the building's manager quit.
Michael knew he needed a plan for Snowlake to revitalize the building. First, he needed to build up experience and a team to help manage operations. Michael relocated to Chicago’s South Side, less than 10 minutes from the building. Removing the property management company not only eliminated the management fee and reduced the bloated maintenance expense, but laid the foundation for hands-on real estate experience. Michael would stay up late painting, caulking, cleaning, and laying down flooring to prepare for showings and inspections. He also started attending countless real estate events to develop a network of mentors and contacts who he could learn from. Within a few months, he had a team of people he could trust to help him.
The next step was removing the drug dealers and addicts, and replacing them with clean, well-paying tenants. Adding security cameras, extra lighting, signage, and the occasional undercover narcotics cop provided enough negotiating power to pressure the dealers and addicts to vacate the building in weeks rather than months.
With the dealers out, Snowlake started modernizing the building. Michael re-painted the hallways, added new carpets and blinds, installed Amazon lockers, and put new trees and courtyard row lights outside to improve the building’s resident experience. He also introduced more structured processes to make the building run smoothly. And, he introduced strategies to reduce utility, maintenance, and insurance expense – everything from solar power and insulating doors to cut utility expenses, to a 50% insurance premium reduction.
The Jackson Park building experience laid the foundation for Snowlake’s values of acting ethically, responsively, and innovatively. When you have a building that is well-managed and well-maintained, you attract happy, long-term tenants who care and pay well. This approach is not only socially rewarding, but also financially rewarding. This is the mentality that enabled Snowlake to revitalize the Jackson Park building in less than a year, and which is used on any Snowlake property to deliver the best returns possible.
Our Process
We believe the key to maximizing financial returns is to operate the best building we can.
We firmly believe that a building that embodies proactive management and maintenance may initially outperform a less attentive owner's returns, but in the long-term will attract better tenants, and in turn, better financials. The reverse is also true. A "Slumlord" may initially save money by skimping on maintenance or management expenses, but will eventually face city violations, low quality tenants who don't pay, and criminal activity that makes leasing difficult.
