Hard to judge if Dowling is a good fit based on the available facts.
On the one side, he was the youngest director of football in the premier league when Watford first got promoted and he has overseen a couple of good years there. Equally, he was offered a new contract at the club but turned it down "to explore new opportunities". He clearly had experience so may seem a safer bet to the board.
On the flip side, Watford do not seem to have fought tooth and nail to keep him which we would have done to keep Ashworth, and his exit does not seem to have harmed Watford. The fact he chose to leave there in the first place could be explained by him not feeling he had enough influence, as Watford are run by the Pozzi family alongside sister clubs Udinese and Grenada and their business often seems to run along the same lines. If he didn't have all that much influence, ala Hammond and Terraneo when they were here, it is hard to judge how much he influenced Watford's rise.
Equally, Forest have brought him in now but then sodelined him quite quick. Can we take anything from that? Probably harsh as their new owner came in after he arrived by the looks of it and has gone down the Wolves route.
It might be the right move but I don't have much faith in a club that have made poor appointment after poor appointment since Ashworth left, mostly by Jenkins, culminating in brining in Hammond simply on the basis that he was experienced (but at what exactly, he never established Reading in the prem despite an extended period in charge?).
My preference would have been a more imaginative move, maybe headhunting a top academy director from the UK or abroad and offering them a payrise or promotion, or maybe even looking abroad for a successful tech director from a club with less financial clout in France or Germany.
Still, if he comes in, I will just cross my fingers that he was the best choice after an exhaustive process, and that there were things we wouldn't know about him that have impressed Jenkins and whoever else makes decisions at the club now.