[1] During her studies she worked as an assistant at the panel discussion Der Internationale Frühschoppen under Werner Höfer.

From 1989 to 1993 Piel was a radio correspondent for economic and financial policy at the WDR studio in Bonn.

She then spent a year as head of the radio programme group for business, agriculture, environment and transport.

Piel had no competitors after two candidates, ZDF editor-in-chief Nikolaus Brender and NDR Justiciar Werner Hahn, had withdrawn.

[3] From 2011 to mid-2016, she was CEO of the Cologne Cathedral Cultural Foundation and has been a member of the Board of Trustees since August 2016.