Northwestern named Craig Johnson as the senior vice president for business and finance on Tuesday, months after it restructured its senior leadership amid a budget crisis that left 80 University administrative staffers jobless.

Craig Johnson, who has served as the interim vice president since April, replaces Nim Chinniah, who left the University in the spring and is now at Prager & Co., a financial consulting firm. Prager advised Northwestern during its rollout of $500 million in taxable bonds last October.

Johnson, now the third in charge under the president and provost, previously served as chief operating officer for the Feinberg School of Medicine and as vice dean for finance and administration.

Johnson is the first to assume the role after the University restructured its leadership last spring. After Chinniah announced in April that he would resign, the administration eliminated the executive vice president role and split the responsibilities between Provost Jonathan Holloway and Johnson, who was then in an interim role.

The announcement comes as NU struggles with a budget crisis. In July, eighty administrators were terminated despite earlier guarantees that no one would be fired.

It remains unclear the final amount of the budget deficit, though Holloway projected in January it would reach between $50 million and $100 million. The new fiscal year began September 1.

“Since he joined us as Interim Senior Vice President, he’s done tremendous work overseeing Northwestern’s administration and operating budget,” President Morton Schapiro said in a news release announcing the appointment. “He has also kept a steady hand on Northwestern’s finances and brought his wise stewardship and experience to the University’s business side at a crucial moment in our history.”

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