Tom Windish, Founder of the Windish Agency, joins Renman to talk about artists, building careers, and the renaissance going on in today’s music business.

Soon after, he began booking tours for bands, some of which he had booked to play at his college a few months or years earlier. He now oversees one of the most progressive-thinking companies in concert booking today. Originally starting in his apartment in Chicago, The Windish Agency began with minimum expectations and the desire to be the best agency possible for artists that he loved. The agency continues to keep the goals and needs of the artists at the center of its business by finding inventive and thoughtfully constructed ways to bring their live performances to fans. With offices in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Toronto and Boston, the Windish Agency boasts a roster of more than 500 acts including Foster the People, Gotye, Hot Chip, Passion Pit, Yeasayer, Beirut and M83. The company books tours in the United States, Canada, Central America, South America, Australia, Asia and parts of Europe and Africa. The Windish Agency — which includes 16 agents and 45 employees total — has expanded with a music licensing division that launched in 2011. Windish cites the fast rise of rock band Foster the People as one of his most significant accomplishments during the past year.

“It was about a year-and-a-half ago that I was booking shows for Foster the People and sort of begging and leveraging my relationships to get people to book them for a couple hundred dollars,” he says, noting the group is now selling 10,000 to 15,000 tickets in some markets. Windish also proudly reports that 2012 will be the agency’s best year thus far in terms of revenue and tickets sold. [RenmanMB]