An Irish ŠKODA employee has taken first-place in his category at the International ŠKODA Challenge Competition for the second year in a row.  Cavan native, Darragh Smith, won the Parts Manager Category for the second time at the International Finals of the ŠKODA Challenge.

Darragh began his career in Brady’s ŠKODA, Cavan, 6 years ago, where he trained as an apprentice technician before moving to the Parts Department, in September 2016.

The competition which saw over 190 ŠKODA employees from 32 countries compete in the initiative is designed to ensure that ŠKODA employees, across the world, maintain best-in-class standards, for their ever-growing customer base.   This year's theme was “All Skills Under One Roof” reflecting the greater integration of functions within the automotive industry.

A total of seven ŠKODA employees from across the country competed in the ninth international finals of the ŠKODA Challenge, which took place in Croatia. The ŠKODA Challenge has become a prestigious benchmark for measuring the qualities of the best employees in the global ŠKODA network and includes several different categories, including Sales Executive, Sales Manager, Service Advisor, Service Technician, Diagnostic Technician, and Parts Manager.

Commenting on the results of the International ŠKODA Challenge, Keith Colton, Aftersales Marketing Manager at ŠKODA Ireland, said, “I would like to congratulate Darragh on his continued success in the Parts Manager category at the ŠKODA Challenge. Darragh has been a great team member.  We’re delighted that his hard work and dedication has been rewarded and recognised internationally. It’s a great reflection of the talent that we have working in our network.”

He added, “We are very proud to have an extremely motivated and talented team representing ŠKODA Ireland. Their overall performance at the International ŠKODA Challenge was exemplary.  2019 has been ŠKODA’s most successful year so in Ireland to date with a market share of 8.0% .  These awards demonstrate the industry-leading service that we offer to our customers in Ireland.”