Coca-Cola UNITED Board Chairman Claude Nielsen was inducted into the Kiwanis Club of Birmingham’s Birmingham Business Hall of Fame during a ceremony held Aug. 25 at The Fennec. Nielsen joins fellow inductees including his wife, Kate Nielsen, and father-in-law and former Coca-Cola UNITED President Crawford Johnson III.

“It has been my good fortune to have a business career working with a team of exceptional people and benefiting from exceptional brands,” Nielsen said in an interview with the Over The Mountain Journal. “Any success I’ve enjoyed as a business leader must be shared with the thousands of associates within the Coca-Cola UNITED family who made leading our business over the years such a joy.”

The Kiwanis Club of Birmingham is the world’s largest Kiwanis Club with more than 540 members. The Birmingham Business Hall of Fame Committee since 1997 has annually selected business leaders to induct into the hall of fame who have shown strong leadership and made extraordinary contributions to the greater Birmingham area. Inductees can be living or deceased. It’s part of the 105-year-old club’s mission of building a stronger community.