We've noted that accounting as a profession has been given a boost by Sarbanes Oxley. To get a bit more specific, internal auditors have been enjoying something of a bull market for their services. KPMG notes that management increasingly is asking internal audit managers to find ways to help achieve strategic objectives. Clearly, the role has expanded way beyond internal controls assessment. Executives, at big companies anyway, have generally bought into the notion that compliance done right can yield strategic and operational windfalls. Of course someone has got to find the synergies and efficiencies. Increasingly, that would be the internal auditors.  

For more:
- here's an article [1] from KPMG