Top-dog
pay at America's 500 largest companies collectively decreased last year
for the first time since 2002, although the 13 female chief executives
in that club are feeling rather flush.

After
clocking a juicy 38 percent collective pay increase in 2006, CEOs of
the 500 largest companies in the U.S. — as measured by a composite
ranking of sales, profits, assets and market value — saw their
compensation dwindle an average 15 percent in 2007. (Chalk up much of
that volatility to performance-based compensation packages tied to flagging earnings and share prices.) Meanwhile, those lucky 13 saw their pay jump an average 27 percent.

Not
that the pay gap between male and (the few) female CEOs doesn't
persist. The average take, including salary and bonuses, for all 500
CEOs was $12.8 million — double the female average of $6.5 million.

Indra Nooyi surely isn't grousing about her
paycheck. Topping the list of highest-paid female CEOs, the PepsiCo
chief took home $12.7 million (including $4.5 million in bonus pay),
putting her at No. 139 out of 500 chiefs overall. The Indian-born exec
ranked a bit higher on the Forbes list of the most powerful women in
the world, at No. 5.

Impressive
as that sounds, Nooyi's total compensation was just one-fourteenth that
of the highest-paid man on the list, Oracle's Larry Ellison, who took
home a modest $1 million in salary but realized $182 million from the
exercise of vested stock options last year.

Second on the list of highest-paid female CEOs
is Avon Products' Andrea Jung, who banked $4.3 million in salary and
bonus and received a total compensation of $12 million. Xerox
Chief Anne Mulcahy came in third with total comp of $11 million,
followed by Susan Ivey ($7.2 million) of cig-maker Reynolds American
and Western Union's  Christina Gold ($5.7 million).

Compensation
experts won't hazard a guess as to when, if ever, that pay gap between
male and female CEOs will close. They do, however, suggest that the
ranks of female chief execs will continue to expand as more large
companies look to boost diversity among senior-level management.

In
one study of the largest companies (by sales), Catalyst, a nonprofit
devoted to encouraging diversity in the workplace, found that the
percentage of women holding corporate officer
positions has increased to 15 percent from 12 percent in 2000. That
means more women will be in a position to negotiate bigger paydays,
says Mike Hodak, founder of management consulting firm Hodak Value
Advisors.