India-born PepsiCo chief Indra Nooyi has topped the list of the highest paid female chief executives, who have collectively defied the trend of falling CEO pay at the 500 largest US firms.

Nooyi took home $12.7 million - including $4.5 million in bonus pay - in 2007 putting her at No. 139 out of 500 company chiefs overall, Forbes magazine noted Monday.

The 13 female chief executives in the US magazine's list saw their pay jump an average 27 percent last year. In contrast, after clocking a juicy 38 percent collective pay hike in 2006, CEOs of the 500 companies saw their compensation dwindle an average 15 percent in 2007.

The gap in pay packet of male and the few female CEOs does persist, however. The average take, including salary and bonuses, for all 500 CEOs was $12.8 million, double the female average of $6.5 million.

Even Nooyi's total compensation was just one-fourteenth that of the highest-paid man on the list of 500 top CEOs, Oracle's Larry Ellison. He realised $182 million from the exercise of vested stock options last year in addition to the modest $1 million salary.

Nooyi was followed on the list of highest paid female executives by Avon Products' Andrea Jung, who banked $4.3 million in salary and bonus and received a total compensation of $12 million, and Xerox head Anne Mulcahy with total compensation of $11 million, Forbes said in a report on its website.