Susanne Craig

JPMorgan Chase is working behind the scenes to avert a major potential embarrassment.

Weeks before Vikram S. Pandit’s surprise resignation on Tuesday as chief executive of Citigroup, the banking giant’s powerful chairman, Michael E. O’Neill, was privately huddling with other board members to plan how to replace him, according to several people briefed on the talks.

Goldman Sachs executives have long been among the most richly paid on Wall Street in the best of times. They are now poised to reap a windfall that was sown in the dark days of the financial crisis in 2008.