Bank of America said Wednesday it named an outsider, former Northrop Grumman executive Charles H. Noski, as its chief financial officer.

Noski, 57, succeeds Joe Price, who now heads Bank of America’s consumer and small business banking division. That unit includes the lending operations still struggling to recover from the financial crisis and the recession.

Noski will join the Charlotte, N.C.-based bank on May 11. He had previously been CFO at the defense contractor Northrop Grumman and before that was vice chairman and CFO for AT&T.

Noski will handle all of the company’s finance responsibilities as well as oversee its corporate treasury and global corporate strategy planning and development.

Bank of America Corp., which absorbed Merrill Lynch in a controversial deal more than a year ago, is still trying to recover from the economic downturn. The bank reports its first-quarter earnings Friday.