Willa Shalit

Willa Shalit is the daughter of Gene Shalit and produced The Vagina Monologues, which became a global phenomenon. She is also the co-founder and first Executive Director of V-Day, the worldwide movement to end violence against women that grew out of the play. It was named one of Fortune’s 100 Best American Charities of 2002. She is also an internationally recognized sculptor and is the founder of The Touch Foundation, creating the Please Touch! Exhibition, which allowed the sight-impaired for the first time to "see" people of all races as well as famous people whose faces they had only imagined. She is the subject of the Emmy-winning PBS documentary Willa: Behind the Mask, and author of the book Lifecast: Behind the Mask. Willa is the founder of the Rwanda Path to Peace project which is bringing economic prosperity to the women of Rwanda through global crafts exports. She lives in New York.