Every year, the Forum of Executive Women in Philadelphia publishes its annual Women on Boards report which tracks the number of women who have been appointed to the board of publicly traded companies in the Greater Philadelphia Area.

According to the report “Making Change Happen – What’s it Going to Take?” prepared in coordination with Big Four global accounting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers’s Philadelphia office, only 107 of the 848 public company board seats in the region, or 13 percent , are held by women. In addition, 49 of the top 100 companies in the region have no women at board level and only 6 percent have a woman as CEO.

Unfortunately, the results have shown little change over the last six years, with the percentage of women holding executive positions only increasing from 11 to 13 percent since 2009. In addition, the proportion of women who are top earners only climbed from 9 to 10 percent over the same period.

“The company should be looking down the road to someone who is a leader and who has the skill set who they can bring up as a leader,” said Stephanie Resnick of Fox Rothschild and a Forum member. “It would allow the board and the company to refresh itself.”

Two Chester County companies however, are far ahead of the region’s average. Ametek, the manufacturer of electronic instruments and electromechanical devices based in Berwyn, claimed fifth place on the list, as a third of its board is made up of women. Malvern-based CubeSmart, the self-managed and administered real estate investment trust,  also made a strong showing at 13th place with 25 percent of its board made up of women.

Some of the changes being proposed include identifying potential leaders early on and putting a time limit on terms for board members. However, this is not a call for quotas, instead, it is an attempt to open the eyes of corporations to look at putting more women into executive roles as they makeup half of the consumer market.

“We must get more business leaders to see this as an issue of our age,” added Suzanne Mayes, the Forum’s president. “We have to get to the point where companies that are not proactive are the outliers.”